Icy blue eyes scanned the questionnaire on the desk in front of him while his shaking hand held a small worn pen, the black inked tip hovering over the multiple choice answers to a question he didn't want to answer without writing an extensive essay first. He took quick glances to either side of him, trying to see what Finn and Rachel were writing, both of whom tried to send Kurt a warm smile his way but only turned out tight and strained.

Every new city or town they passed through meant another form to fill out, just so they could stay in another desolate part of town over night before heading back on the road again. Of course there was more to it than that, the forms were for Boarder Control, who would check through all the details, take a pint and a small sample of blood from each person stepping into the city limits and hand out rooms at the various inns. Then as night fell, between three and five people would be chosen from the group, based on their blood and questionnaire, to take part in a blood party as payment for their board and safe passage through the city.

The blood parties were exactly that, a chance for a privileged few of the vampire residents to meet up and sink their fangs into the flesh of the usually drugged up humans. The drugs were almost a necessity for travellers; they help soothe the senses and stop the screaming. Not all humans needed the drugs, those humans who live in the cities and those brought up in the farms become accustom to the constant thirst of the vampires.

Usually Kurt wouldn't consent to taking part in one of these blood parties, but after travelling from city to city and watching his family and friends take part, the guilt of sitting back had gotten to him. So, after pleading with his father to let him take part, to earn his keep, Kurt found himself answering a set of questions he'd never looked at before.

The first was easy enough, 'Do you consent to taking part in a blood party?'' Yes'. The second seemed obvious to Kurt, 'Do you consent to the bite of a vampire?' 'Yes'. The next had Kurt swallowing hard on the lump in his throat, 'Do you consent to the bite of more than one vampire at any one time?' A very hesitant 'Yes' followed that. A shaky hand filled in 'Yes' on the next question, 'Do you consent to the bite of a vampire on any part of exposed skin?' But it was the next question that had him pausing and debating himself.

A rough, bulky hand snatched the pen off Kurt, making him jump, watching the hand move the pen down to tick one of the boxes he'd been hesitating over. He had read it over and over again, unsure of what to do, knowing full well that others would consent, while others wouldn't. It was Kurt's choice.

Do you consent to intercourse?

It was a blunt question, with so many variables that Kurt wanted to open his mouth and question the vampires now collecting the forms and directing the humans to the nurse's office, where they'd have their blood pumped into blood bags and a small sample set aside for vetting those for the blood parties.

Kurt looked up at his father as he was handed back the pen, "If you get chosen, this'll be your first blood party, and you shouldn't have to do those sorts of acts just so these monsters can enjoy your blood a little bit more than normal."

Kurt nodded, taking the pen back, licking his dry lips, "Thanks dad."

Burt nodded, patting Kurt on the shoulder, "Hurry it up, kid."

Kurt watched Burt thrust his own form into the chest of the bulky vampire, unfazed by the fanged hiss sent his way and disappears into the nurse's office. Kurt's eyes return to the form, biting his lip as he scans the questions, but with Burt ticking 'No' to that one question, all the others became void, except for one. 'Skills'. Below this heading are all the skills thought appropriate for a blood party and Kurt quickly ticks 'Singer' and 'Pianist' before handing the form over and following the rest of his group into the nurse's office.

The room was clinical, just as expected, with row upon row of paper towel draped metal chairs with small stainless steel tables next to them, where sterilised needles lay wrapped up, ready for use, and blood bags hung on hooks over the chairs. Only Puck and Burt remained in the room, needles tapped into the soft flesh on the inside of their elbows with their blood bags half filled and the samples already taken. This part was no different for Kurt, everyone, even those who declined to take part in the blood parties had blood taken as well as samples; it was all part of the payment for their stay and made the whole process more efficient.

Wordlessly, he sat down in an empty chair, rolling up the sleeve of his black shirt and rested it on the arm of his chair, watching as the nurse stepped over with a small vial to collect his sample. Kurt didn't watch as she took the sample and inserted the new needle for the blood bag, instead he watched her. He noted the warm tone of her skin and the slight blush on her cheeks - a clear sign she'd just fed - and the way the tip of her retreated fang sat pressed lightly into her bottom lip; she'd fed not thirty minutes ago.

It was a rule that all those on Boarder Control, including doctors and nurses, were to feed before processing any humans. It wasn't uncommon to see one of their humans chained up in the corner, almost unconscious with several bite marks over their bodies, but this place was clean. Kurt met the eyes of the nurse; she'd caught him staring at her.

"Sorry... you... you look..." Kurt was struggling with his words, unsure as to how much he'd upset the nurse.

"Healthy? Sweetie, I know you're just curious but it's rude to stare. A boy of your age should know that."

The smile on the nurse's lips caused Kurt to blush hard and swallow away his dry throat, "Sorry."

"It's okay, cutie." Kurt couldn't help watching the nurse smile again, her fangs on display.

"Where's you human?" Kurt kicked himself for asking, deciding biting on his tongue from here on out was his best choice.

"Resting, dear." The nurse pulled the needle from Kurt's arm, taping a cotton bud over his vein. "There, all done."

Nodding his head, Kurt jumped to his feet and ran out the door, where he'd seen Puck and Burt go, he didn't dare hesitate in fear he'd insult the nurse again. He found his group in a waiting room, with another vampire, Asian in appearance, short military cut black hair with a kind smile, dressed in a simple grey suit, handing out maps and keys to each of them. Burt approached Kurt, thrusting a map and key into his hands, as the vampire spoke to the group.

"If you have any problems while you're here, you can call the number at the bottom of the map, that's my number, my name's Wesley Montgomery, I'm Head of Boarder Control. You'll all be staying in a lovely little inn called, Hale's Diner, in the centre of the Human District. The map shows the boundaries of that district, do not step outside it if you know what's good for you. Also, our farms are in that district, marked in black on the map... I'd stay out of there as well."

Kurt opened up the map, quickly finding the inn marked with a huge red 'X' and only two blocks behind it, was a huge blacked out area. The 'farms' was a nice way of referring to the factories where the humans, the vampires kept as pets or meals, were harvested. Women would stay on the farms while they were fertile and would be forced to give birth over and over again to offspring raised to serve the vampires. They would be raised on the drugs used at blood parties until they no longer needed them in order to accept the bite of a vampire and their entire upbringing was built around being exactly what a vampire needed.

It made Kurt sick to the stomach that these practices were allowed to go on, humans treated like cattle, but it had stopped the rouge attacks that had spawned before the Lord of the Vampires built these facilities... and as long as he and his group obeyed the rules, none of them would end up on one of these farms.

A tap on his shoulder brought Kurt back to the room, looking up at Burt with a tight smile then following him with the rest of the group out of the building.

"I'll come by the inn at six to collect the chosen." Wes called out before closing the door behind them.

"Damn vampires." Burt muttered under his breath, pushing Kurt along then leading the group through the Human District of the large skyscraper city, towards the inn.

Compared to the clean, sparse expanse of the city with its glass skyscrapers, large walkways lined with green leaved trees and open large parks, the Human District looked like something from Victorian England. With its dirty cobble paved streets, small thatch buildings and barely a tree or plant in sight, it was something Kurt and his group didn't want to be a part of. There were plenty of advantages to living in a vampire city, mainly its protection from the werewolves, but once you've lived in a pixie village where the humans live equal to them, it's hard to give that up.

That's where Kurt had come from and where they'd all lived in peace until six months ago when a pack of werewolves attacked the village and sent everyone fleeing into the surrounding woodland. A couple of the pixies escaped and met up with Burt, telling him of another village far from any werewolf districts, and that's where they were heading now. It meant moving from vampire city to vampire city, paying the toll every time, but it was better than camping out and risking being hunted down by any werewolves.

Hale's Diner didn't look out of place here, one of the largest buildings around but still cramped and falling apart at the seams, with small sash windows which all have a break or two, some even swinging on their rusted hinges. It wasn't that the vampires neglected the humans who lived in their cities, it was that the human didn't care for the buildings they rented off them, preferring to instead put their money aside in the hopes of moving on to better things. If those things existed.

Within the inn heaved the bodies of tired, worn humans, all either digging into just warm food or overzealously filled glasses of various alcoholic beverages. There was a stench in the air of smoke and blood; smoke from the cigarettes and cigar between lips and fingers, ones long gone dying away in a pile in the centre of the tables, and blood from the two neat and fresh open wounds on necks, wrists and any exposed skin in easy reach.

Puck was first at the bar, tapping his room key down on the wooden surface and smoothing back his mohawk with a flirtatious grin as the young woman finished serving an elderly gentlemen and turned all her attention to him.

"You're a new face." Spoke the blonde, sweeping her hair off her exposed shoulder, bite marks clear to see on her neck.

"Just spending a night. Maybe you could make it a little more fun for me later on." Puck winked, tapping on the side of a pump to obtain his drink.

The girl smiled, grabbing a glass and filling it with the strong ale from the pump, "Maybe. If you don't get chosen for the blood party."

"If you promise me your company, I'll make sure I'm not needed." Puck smiled, taking his pint from the girl.

"I won't promise you something when you can't promise me such a thing." The girl turned from Puck to serve one of the locals.

"Ouch, fail." Finn patted Puck on the back, leading Rachel passed the bar and up the stairs to the guest rooms.

Kurt watched Puck sulk away to the end of the bar to watch the girl work from his seat at a corner booth. The girl was right though, no one could escape payment, if you did then three others would have to take the place of one, and as a small group, it would be frowned upon and most likely end up with you being kicked out and left to fend on your own. It had only happened once, Jacob had been chosen two cities back and had hidden in the alleyways behind the hotel they had been assigned and in his place, Tina, Mike and Burt had had to take part in the blood party.

The next morning Burt had no problem with seeking out the cowardly boy and leaving him behind in that city. Kurt had felt bad for him for a moment, until he saw the angry bite marks in his father's neck and wrists and listened with worry to his laboured breathing. The journey that day had been slow to allow Burt's heart the recovery it needed.

Kurt watched everyone get settled around the bar or up in their rooms and decided to take a walk outside, round the back of the inn where he'd spotted the looming rooftops of the farms. Smoke billowed from the chimneys, while eerie amber lighting streamed through the iron barred windows making it look like a factory from the old days. But everyone knew better. From his vantage point two blocks down from the building, Kurt could hear the screams and wails of pain from the humans kept like cattle in there.

All the inns they stayed in were the same, positioned close enough to the farms, as if to warn the visitors of where they could end up if they didn't obey the rules put it place. Kurt had never seen a human brought up on a farm before, they tended to be kept locked away by the vampires or breeders; the humans seen walking about the city were likely to be free or freed blood bags, who just attended blood parties or filled blood bags to get a bit of extra cash.

A shiver ran through his lithe frame, pale fingers gripping his arms to hold in the warmth. Only a few more hours and he would know if he was chosen for the blood party tonight. It would be his first and he was terrified. He'd never been bitten, never been drugged and never left alone with vampires before. He'd seen them before, seen the lustful glances they'd send his way, wanting to taste his untouched blood. It was part of the reason why he wanted to take part tonight. If he could have his blood taken by some vampire then maybe, just maybe, the lingering looks would simmer.

They wouldn't disappear altogether, not while Kurt, at the age of nineteen, remained a virgin, but there was very little he could and wanted to do about that right now. He didn't want to give that away to some stranger in some unknown city, he wanted a romance, he wanted to feel that spark. He wanted to wait until they settled down in a pixie village, he wanted to bump into someone and share a moment before laughing it away nervously. He wanted to get to know him and fall in love with this stranger before given him everything... and that was a long way off.

His entire body rattled with nerves and he raised his wet eyes up to the sky and sent a wish out to his mother to give him strength. It was going to be a long night, but in the morning, they'd move on and leave this city behind with all the horrible memories Kurt was going to make.

Hazel eyes skimmed over the black ink on the spiral bound pages balanced precariously in his left hand while his right yanked open the stubbornly stiff door to the refrigerator in the large cream kitchen, accented in burgundy, a teak topped breakfast bar the only thing separating it from the spacious lounge, which was at the moment hidden beneath piles of similar looking spiral bound mounds of paper.

Glancing briefly from his page to the fridge, just long enough to distinguish between the stainless steel flasks and pluck out one of his choosing, Blaine deftly unscrewed the lid and poured a deep red liquid into a mug adorned with musical notes before replacing the lid and putting the flask back in the fridge. With a sigh towards the utter ramblings on the current paragraph, Blaine placed the mug in the microwave tucked neatly into the corner closest to the fridge and set the timer.

Resting his bare lower back against the counter, he turned the page over, grumbling when a droplet of water fell from his still damp curls. Tossing the paper aside, he yanks the door of the microwave open, seconds before the alarm was to sound, and dragged the mug out to press the rim to his lower lip and let the warm red liquid slide over his tongue and down his throat, warming his body.

Though Blaine tended to keep himself topped up with blood, just those few sips were already bringing a warmth to his olive skin which he'd started to lose since his last feed. It was dangerous for a vampire to be without blood from a blood bag after twenty four hours but with Blaine's job, he felt the need to feed every four to six hours. It didn't help that he preferred to drink from the blood bags rather than keep a human to feed from; a vampire would only have to feed every three days when given a live source of blood.

Blaine's eyes lifted over the rim of his mug as he heard a key settle into the lock on his front door, and the quick flick of the mechanics as it unlocked, letting his guest in. There were a handful of people Blaine gave a key to but he had a good idea of who it was considering the time of day.

"Well I see that maid I got you is doing a fine job." Wes' wide grin hid the disdain he was feeling at walking into the junk yard which was now the lounge.

"I let her go." Blaine muttered into his mug, drowning the last drop and licking the rim clean before tossing it into the sink already filled with red stained mugs.

"That time of the month?" Wes asked, placing a briefcase down on the breakfast bar; the only clean surface in the house.

"This place will be spotless in three days... Once I get through all this." Blaine pointed at various piles of files around the house.

He was generally a very tidy person, however for one week, once a month, he would have to review every vampire and free human under his control and decide if any of them required any disciplinary action. It was a huge task which meant long hours, no time for keeping a tidy house and definitely no time to put up with a whining house maid.

"Well, put those files aside for one night, because you, my oh so overworked friend, are coming to the blood party tonight." The grin on Wes' face made it seem like that was the solution to all of his problems.

"And why would I want to do that?"

"Because as you may be aware, maybe you're not, I get to chose the good little vampires who attend these parties, and tonight, I, well Jeff and Thad persuaded me, have decided to use tonight's blood party to hold a Warbler reunion." Wes clapped his hands together in self praise before turning to his briefcase and pulling out a set of vials, pipettes and a large brown file, which only caused Blaine to groan and roll his eyes into the back of his head.

"I do not want to read more profiles, Wes!" Blaine groaned, rubbing his eyes with the ball of his palms.

"Okay, okay! I get it, Mr. Grump has read enough profiles for one life time. Don't worry, I've already done the hard work and chosen these ten humans from all the others for you to choose from. Just have a taste of the samples and tell me which three you think will work for everyone tonight. It's a big night, we haven't all got together in over a year, it's your first night off in two weeks, so we want the blood to be top grade."

Wes pushed the vials towards Blaine with the pipettes, while opening up the files, skimming through the pages and propping himself up on one of the bar stools.

Blaine gazed across the vials, organising the pipettes as he spoke, "What about Nick? Is he going?"

"Yeah, he's going?" Wes spoke, his eyes not leaving the pages in front of him.

"So I only need to choose two?" Only three humans tended to be chosen for smaller blood parties.

"No no, Nick is not down as a feeding human. Since Jeff has now claimed him, only Jeff gets his sweet blood." Everyone knew how sweet Nick's blood was, a little too sweet for Blaine's taste, so everyone, including Wes, mourned when Jeff finally claimed his long term boyfriend.

Carefully, Blaine unscrewed each of the caps, keeping them all in order and placed a pipette in each one, squeezing just enough blood into each of the tips. Wes watched as he brought the first one to his tongue and let a drop of blood hit his taste buds. Wes couldn't help the roar of laughter as he watched Blaine grimace and shiver with disgust at the taste of the first sample. Without a word, Blaine took the sample bottle, poured the rest down the sink and turned the tape on, glad to be rid of the blood and the accompanied smell.

"That bad, eh?" Wes grinned.

"Awful. If the rest are like that, we can stop right now." Blaine croaked, sipping from a glass of water he'd just poured.

"That one was on drugs and a heavy drinker so I wasn't expecting much from him anyway."

"Thanks for the warning. I don't want to know about the ones you've already dismissed."

Wes smirked with a little chuckle, "No you don't. Now come on, carry on."

Wes held up the second pipette to Blaine, who took it with a grumble. As the blood hit his tongue, Wes watched for Blaine's reaction, making notes next to the number on the listed page he had at the top of his pile. This carried on throughout the whole process, occasionally Wes would sample the blood as well when prompted by Blaine or because of Blaine's indifference to the flavour. With a relieved sigh, Wes pushed the last sample bottle towards Blaine.

"Last one." He sighed.

Blaine groaned, hand over his stomach, "Do I have to?"

"Come on baby, drink up." Wes teased, holding the pipette up to him.

With a whine, tip of a fang digging into his lower lip, Blaine took the pipette and squeezed a drop of blood onto his tongue. A warmth spread over his tongue and throat from the cold blood followed by a tingling sensation as his taste buds took on a mixture of spices followed by a flow of ice, chilling his body, a shiver rattling his every bone. With dazed eyes, Blaine set the pipette on his tongue and squeezed every last drop out of the small utensil, a groan escaping as he closed his eyes to the sensations circling his body, warming his blood.

Wes quirked an eyebrow at Blaine's reaction and smirked at the slight tent building in the towel around his waist.

"Wow there, Blaine. I like you and all but, there's no need for that." He teased, reaching for a clean pipette and sampling the blood, his own pupils dilating at the senses brought to life through the blood.

Blaine blushed throwing the pipette in the sink and taking a few steadying breaths to calm himself. He'd never been so affected by human blood before and through his embarrassment at displaying such a reaction in front of Wes, Blaine pondered why and what this meant... if anything.

"So, I'm guessing this last one is on the list." Wes smirked, pulling a file out and placing it face down on the table.

Blinking to bring himself back to the present, Blaine turned back to Wes with a nod. He wanted to taste more of that blood, he wanted to see the face behind it and learn more about the human it belong to. He needed to know more.

"And which other two?" Wes prompted, turning the sheet of paper towards Blaine so he could see the notes he'd made.

But Blaine couldn't concentrate on anything but the blood he'd tasted, instead his eyes just skimmed the page, looking for Wes' telltale symbol of a little bird next to the number he liked, "Five and Eight." Blaine muttered, stepping from the kitchen and heading up the spiral staircase to his room.

"Great. I'll pick you up at seven." Wes called, pulling the three files from his stack and putting them at the top of the pile for later. He heard a hum as Blaine's response and took it as his queue to leave. He had a lot to do before meeting with Blaine, including picking up the humans for the blood party tonight.