Kurt, it's useless!"

Kurt ignored Blaine and rammed his shoulder into the door again. And again. And again. And--

Blaine was suddenly at his side, pulling him back and then they were up top again. "Stop it," Blaine said sternly, setting him below the window and sitting next to him. "You're going to break your arm."

"Well you could have helped," Kurt said sullenly, massaging his shoulder. 

Blaine sighed, biting into his wrist and holding it over to Kurt. "Here. I'll fix your neck after."

Kurt grimaced at the red wrist before putting his mouth over it and sucking briefly, wrinkling his nose as he pulled back and swallowed. Within seconds he was scrambling over to the stairs, holding onto the top one as he vomited black bile violently onto them, body shaking with the force of it.

Blaine was by his side instantly, hands flying everywhere around his body, panicking and not sure what to do. 

After what seemed like gallons of bile--followed by nearly choking on foam--Kurt pushed back from the staircase, coughing and crying as he wiped his mouth and settled against the wall weakly.

Blaine cupped his face, looking back and forth between his eyes. "What happened to you...?" He leaned over and licked the still gaping wound that Marley had left when she'd drank from him. His face contorted and he spit, wiping his tongue on the back of his sleeve. "Dead man's blood," he said quietly, fingers pressing against the outside of the wound. "It's infected with dead man's blood. And so are you... Oh god, did you drink it?"

Kurt blinked, trying to remember. "Not on purpose. But she dropped me and I wasn't prepared and I'd lost a lot of blood and the water just came in my mouth and I was trying to cough it out but I couldn't breathe and--"

"Okay, okay," Blaine nodded, licking his lips in concentration. "Kurt, it's fine. You didn't do anything wrong. But...I can't heal you now. It won't work. If I give you blood again, you might die."

"Blaine," Kurt whispered. "I'm stuck with a vampire in a lighthouse that neither of us can escape from and there's no food or water. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to die sooner rather than later."

Blaine just cupped his face. He didn't say anything, but Kurt knew that he'd already knew he was right.

***

An hour passed. 

Kurt was exhausted and slipping in and out of consciousness, leaning against Blaine's shoulder. 

Blaine was just staring across the small area, looking grim.

"Is there really no way out?" Kurt whispered.

Blaine shook his head. "I tried for decades. The only way is to open the door."

"I don't suppose you have a cell phone on you?" Kurt asked and Blaine shook his head.

"There's no reception here anyways," Blaine sighed. "Or wifi. Or civilization. This lighthouse was shut down because no boats even came by. It's like a small blip on the map that no one really goes to. You were the first person since 1914 to come within three hundred feet of this structure..." Blaine gave a humorless chuckle. "And you just opened up the door."

"What was it like?" Kurt questioned. "Afterwards. Going from 1914 to 2003?" 

"Confusing," Blaine murmured. "And awful. I mean...thousands of ships had passed into the cape and I could hear strains of conversation and radio broadcasts, so I knew vaguely of things that were happening in the world, but..." He sighed. "Being a vampire, I always knew that mortal acquaintances of mine would one day die, but when I'd gone into the lighthouse, Charlotte was young and healthy. When I left, she was dead and her great-grandson was staring at me." He laughed quietly to himself. "It's funny. After a year of trying to break out of here, I used to indulge in this fantasy of Charlotte somehow just...knowing where I was and coming to let me out. I guess my fantasy came true, just three generations too late."

"How did you..." Kurt paused, trying to think of a way to phrase it delicately. "Well...it was eighty-nine years, how did you stay sane? I mean, can vampires lose their minds?"

Blaine snorted back a laugh. "Have you met Marley? Yeah, we can definitely lose it, and she's gotten worse after ninety-eight years. And now she's out..."

Kurt shivered. "What do you think she'll do?"

"Go after Wes in the longrun," Blaine sighed. "I wish I could warn him. Or Mike, he's down in New Haven right now. But she'll probably tear apart the town first. She hasn't fed in a long while...well, besides you..."

Kurt nodded quietly. "But you managed to stay sane."

Blaine smiled grimly. "Well, there were moments I lost it. But..." He broke off, looking up out the window at the sky. "It was the night of my engagement party when I went off to deal with Marley. I thought I'd be back in time but..." He grimaced. "Yeah, you know how that turned out. But before I left, Charlotte tucked a gardenia in my pocket because I had to 'look presentable' later on and...I still had it when I was trapped up here. It died after a couple of days but...the smell...they were her--"

"Favorite flower," Kurt said quietly. "You...you told her 'sweet dreams', didn't you?"

"Every night when I'd bring her home," Blaine nodded. "Why?"

Kurt smiled softly. "My mom used to tell me that when she was little, she'd visit her grandma's house and it'd always smell like gardenias and her grandmother would lean over and tell her 'sweet dreams' before kissing her on the forehead goodnight. Mom used to tell me that too when I was little, and she had this perfume she'd always wear that would smell just like gardenias..."

Blaine smiled in response. "It's...kind of a vampire thing. Each coven, or individual if we decide to go on our own, has their own flower that's kind of like our...insignia. Or stamp, or crest which we can be recognized by other vampires. With Wes and Mike and Tina, we were originally under the jasmine flower but Wes changed it to the white rose after he met Marley. After Tina's death, we broke apart and chose our own flowers. I didn't have one until Charlotte kept slipping gardenias into my pockets...

"But then after a while the smell faded from the wood and it was just the faint scent of hawthorn everywhere. It was terrible and I kept imagining that I'd smell gardenia flowers and that last decade, I suppose I did crack at some point.

"Then the door opened and my throat was burning for a meal and you were right their and I jumped on top of you. But...you smelled like gardenias. Exactly like gardenias, not just the ghost of the scent from my imagination. And it was like everything just became clear and I looked at you and you just stared at me with those big blue eyes that had been exactly Charlotte's and I just..." 

"Yeah," Kurt said quietly in understanding.

"So I took you home. And kind of conned you into letting me in your room. And everything in there smelled like gardenias as well. Then I stayed the night to make sure that you were alright."

"I didn't know that," Kurt murmured.

Blaine shrugged. "And then you were gone within a week. I was finally free to leave the cape as well because there was a bridge. I traveled. Found Wes and Mike again. They'd thought I was dead. I experienced the world that had moved on without me. I always kept tabs on Provincetown though and one day I learned that the Blanc mansion was getting a new member in the form of one orphaned Kurt Hummel, so I returned."

"You came back because of me?" Kurt stared at him.

"Of course," Blaine smiled. "You were the little boy who'd saved me. I had to make sure that you were alright. I...it had been so long. Everything had changed, even the undead. They say we stay the same because we don't age, but really, we're just affected by the sands of time as anyone else. And I didn't...know how to live anymore. Or pretend how to live. And it was like you just popped up and suddenly I had a purpose. Someone to find so I could secure their safety. You were someone I could pretend for..." He gave a sudden laugh. "Sort of ironic that the next time I saw you, you were up in here, looking out over the snow."

"I was hiding," Kurt protested. "And you scared me."

"I seem to do that a lot," Blaine nodded.

"Then you cleared an entire path all the way to your house," Kurt snorted. "You weren't exactly subtle, were you?"

"Yeah well..." Blaine shrugged. "You were a lot cuter than I thought you'd be."

Kurt scoffed. "Flattery will get you nowhere. Actually, it'll get you everywhere. Go on, tell me more about how cute I am."

"Very cute," Blaine rolled his eyes. "Also very prone to attracting the wrong sort of company. And taking a third option when you really really shouldn't."

"What's that supposed to me?" Kurt frowned.

Blaine shot him a look. "You were supposed to either leave forever and go out the front door and take one of my cars and go, or decide to stay and then just stay in the house. You weren't supposed to go into the backyard--to the fringes of the backyard--and get within earshot of Marley and then get tranced into going to the meadow, Kurt."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Then give me written instructions next time or tell me, don't just give me a key."

"It was supposed to be symbolic."

"For what?"

Blaine looked away suddenly, fiddling his fingers. "I...I heard you singing. At the piano. I was watching you."

Kurt froze, but let him continue.

"And I...I've been trying to save you this whole time. I keep trying to save you. But you just kept trying and...it wasn't doing either of us any good. You didn't want to live, and all those times I tried to save you didn't change that. And I thought that maybe if I gave you the key...you could just make the decision for yourself and find something to live for... And you were singing that song and--" He looked back at Kurt, his eyes large and hazel. "And I was hoping that you'd decide to stay."

Kurt leaned over to cup Blaine's cheek and he pressed their foreheads together. "I..." he started shakily. "Everything had been falling apart. Things at school. Then dad died. I had to move out here. I couldn't control anything. I was just pushed along from one place to the next and I just wanted something that I could control--" he sighed, rolling his forehead against Blaine's, leaning against him heavily. "But others still kept trying to do it for me. Marley. Scott. Even you..." He blinked his eyes open, staring at Blaine. "That's why you scare me so much. I don't feel like I have any control when I'm around you. Not just because of what you are but..." He bit his lip. "But because when I'm with you...I don't mind giving up control. And that's why I did decide to stay," he whispered. "I just wanted to see the sky again. I'm sorry for getting us in this mess."

"I'm sorry for not warning you," Blaine murmured back in response, softly stroking the side of Kurt's neck. "And now we're stuck in this predicament. At least this time I have a much more sustainable source of gardenia scent to block out the hawthorn."

Kurt smiled at him sadly. "But I can't last either, Blaine. Sooner or later..."

Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt, pulling him into his lap and holding him close. "And when that happens, I'll tear a chunk of hawthorn out of the wall and stake myself."

"Blaine--"

"Kurt," Blaine fired back, pulling back to cup his neck. "I was stuck here for eighty-nine years. The only reason I got out was because you just happened to stumble across this place and needed a place to hide and you were eight and didn't question opening it. It took eighty-nine years for that to happen. It probably won't again."

"But it could one day, you could get out--" Kurt protested.

"And what would be let out?" Blaine asked seriously. "Not me. I don't want to think about what I'll become, Kurt. This won't be like last time, I'll literally have lost everything."

"No, you won't!"

Blaine's face crumpled. "Kurt...I'll have lost you. Of course I'll lose everything."

Kurt brought his hands up to Blaine's wrists. "But you can't--"

"I think that was the plan originally," Blaine said with a grim smile. "When the hunters got me in here. I think they thought I'd just try to end it all after a decade or two. That's why they lined the inside with hawthorn. It's their own insignia..."

Kurt's brows furrowed. "But I thought you said that only vampires had them?"

Blaine rolled his eyes. "I think they thought they were being clever or something. Because, you know, when flowers die, they often turn into--"

"Ouch!" Kurt hissed as Blaine's finger pressed into the wound on his neck.

Blaine pulled his hands back instantly, eyes wide. "I'm sorry, I didn't--"

"It's fine," Kurt shook his head, touching it with his finger gingerly. "It's not your fault, it's Marley's and her freakishly large teeth--" He froze, blinking. "Blaine...how far out were you last night?"

"What do you mean?" Blaine frowned.

"When you were swimming or whatever. How far out were you?"

"Oh," Blaine blinked. "I don't know...maybe a couple hundred feet?"

"And yet in just a couple of seconds, you were out of the water, all the way back to your house and in the foyer in time to catch me."

"Adrenaline's kind of like a hook," Blaine shrugged. "It's the most potent and sort of sends us into a frenzy to get back to where ever our humans are. Apparently Tina once crashed through an entire palace to reach Mike in time back when he was still human."

"So what if I jumped down the stairs here?" Kurt asked, peering down them.

Blaine blinked. "I'd catch you. I thought that much was obvious."

"Because you've drank my blood and stuff, right," Kurt nodded. "But so has Marley. So wouldn't she come back here? So I could just jump right now and we'd be free!" He tried to get to his feet, but Blaine held him fast.

"That is...very smart thinking Kurt, but it wouldn't get us free," Blaine shook his head. "It would bring her back, sure, but it won't force her to save you. She'll have to want to open the door to open it. I got to you in time each time, but I saved you because I ultimately wanted to. Marley doesn't."

Kurt nodded, dejected. 

"It's okay," Blaine said quietly. "Nothing can get me through these walls."

Kurt blinked, a memory flitting in the back of his memory. "Blaine...can you break a strip off of the stair railing?"

Blaine looked up in surprise. "Sure, I guess. It's just tin..." He reached over and broke off a two foot long bar from the railing. "But why would you--?"

Kurt took the bar and stood, stumbling briefly from blood loss before focusing and swinging the bar as hard as he could at the window.

"Kurt?" Blaine stood smoothly next to him. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting us out of here," Kurt huffed as he swung the bar again. It hit one of the iron strips that crisscrossed across the circular window this time and he frown before jabbing sharply at one of the triangular window that the bars formed, breaking the glass. The lower triangle was about two feet wide and a little over a foot high and Kurt threw the bar to the side before climbing awkwardly through the broken glass, wincing as he cut himself on the cut edges of the frame and stumbled out onto the wrought iron balcony, shaking glass shards out of his hair.

"See?" he grinned, leaning against the ledge of the balcony. "Easy!"

"Kurt, that's because iron doesn't bother you," Blaine sighed, leaning against the crossed bars of the window. "Even if I could climb past these bars, there's no way I could get past the balcony."

"Except I think you can," Kurt said. He stepped up on one of the lower bars of the ledge so that he could sit on top of it.

Blaine stared at him. "Kurt, what are you doing?"

"Marley's not going to come in because she doesn't want to save me," Kurt said, gripping the ledge tightly as his heart hammered. "But maybe...you could get out because you do."

"Kurt, get back inside," Blaine said, panicking as he guessed Kurt's plan. "Get back in here, now!"

"You said so yourself!" Kurt snapped. "You said that you'd save me no matter what, and nothing, not even a rescinded invitation would keep you out!"

"It was a figure of speech!" Blaine yelled. 

"Really?" Kurt snapped. "Did Tina have an invitation to that palace she tore through to get to Mike?"

Blaine stared at him. "I don't know."

"Exactly!" Kurt smiled. "Don't you see? This'll work! You always catch me, and Marley will get here and we can lock her in instead--"

"Not having an invitation is one thing, getting past iron is another!" Blaine said desperately, pressing against the window desperately. "Just come back in, this is suicide!"

"No, it's not!" Kurt said, loosening his grip. "I'm not doing this because I want to die, Blaine. I'm doing this because I want to live!" 

Blaine stared at him.

Kurt licked his lips and went on. "Whenever I'm in trouble, you always save me. And you will now too. I'm not going to die. It'll be okay."

"You don't know that!"

"But I do!" Kurt said, blinking back tears. "Because...you managed to get me out of my house that night the field hockey team attacked me. You thought I was about to die and nothing stopped you from saving my life."

"Because you'd invited me in when you were younger!" Blaine yelled. "That's hardly the same thing--"

"That's not what I meant," Kurt shook his head. "You tore through the front gate of the house to get to me."

Blaine looked at him, confused.

Kurt smiled. "Blaine, the front gates are made of iron."

He let go and tipped back off the balcony.