Kurt yawned as he drifted from sleep, rubbing against his eyes with his fists as he snuggled under the soft velvet sheets, gently blinking his eyes open.

Blaine was standing next to the bed, staring down at him.

Kurt lurched back up against the pillows, holding the comforter up to his chest. 

"Good morning," Blaine said quietly. 

"What are you doing?"

"Watching you sleep."

That did nothing to help Kurt's internal panicking. "And why were you watching me sleep?"

Blaine sighed and climbed onto the bed, leaning back against one of the posts at the foot of the bed. "I scared you last night. I apologize, that wasn't my intention."

"Well you did a pretty thorough job of it," Kurt shot back before closing his eyes and wincing. "I mean..."

"No, you're right," Blaine said softly. "But Kurt, you have to understand...I'm not human. I know I look like it--" He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. "--but I haven't been human in over two hundred years. I'm not--I don't--" He sighed, raking his hands through his hair. "I don't react in appropriate ways. I try, I really do, I mean...I was going to do everything right. Dance with you. Take you on a date. Try to explain slowly what I was and ease you into the idea--"

"Why?" Kurt whispered.

"Because I wanted to do it the right way," Blaine said quietly.

"No," Kurt shook his head. "I mean why me? Because of my great-grandmother?"

"No. I mean, yes, partially, but...never mind, it isn't important."

"It's important to me," Kurt said, staring at him.

Blaine looked down in his lap silently. "But the point is...I went back to the restaurant looking for you and you were gone." 

"I realized that something was wrong," Kurt murmured. "You didn't have footprints. You never have."

Blaine smiled bitterly, looking back up at him. "I was wondering what it was that'd caused you to leave. And then I went looking for you because it was snowing hard and I was afraid you'd catch pneumonia and...I heard it. Well, I smelled it first."

"Smelled what?"

His eyes went black. He looked livid, but not directed at Kurt. "Your blood. Everywhere. Even the storm couldn't block it out. And I heard you crying over lots and lots of laughter. So I--"

"Ripped them all to pieces," Kurt finished, looking down at his fingers uncomfortably.

Blaine sighed. "Yes."

Silence filled the room.

"They hurt you," Blaine said in a small voice. "They probably would have kept going and left you there to die."

"And for that, they all deserved to?" Kurt said, looking up and blinking back tears. "Blaine, they're just teenagers--"

"Don't try and make excuses for what they did," Blaine snapped, teeth grinding together. "Kurt they could have very well killed you last night. Their thoughts and actions were their own despite their age."

"But you didn't have to kill them!"

"Why do you care so much?"

"I didn't want twelve teenagers to die because of me!" Kurt's voice cracked as the tears spilled over. 

Blaine licked. "I...I can't feel sorry for what I did, Kurt. I can't even feel guilty. I told you, I'm not human. Those emotions just aren't...there for me."

"But I am human, Blaine!" Kurt said, wiping at his eyes. "And the fact is, it's my fault that they're all dead."

"It's not--"

"If I hadn't left the restaurant, they'd still be alive."

"You were scared! If they hadn't have attacked you, they'd still be alive. It was their actions that caused it, Kurt, and mine that carried it out. And if I hadn't, they would have killed you!"

"Well maybe that's what I wanted!"

Blaine stared at him, eyes slowly receding from black to hazel. "Kurt, why do you keep trying to end your life?" he whispered.

Kurt looked down at the comforter. "I...have nothing, Blaine. My mom's dead. My dad's dead. Grandma hates me but she's pretty much dead as well. I have no friends. I have no...dreams. I did but...everything just seems so pointless now. I don't belong here. Or in Lima. Or anywhere, really. I don't...I can't...I'm trying to find a reason to live, but I can't seem to--" He breathed out slowly, closing his eyes. He opened them slowly and looked at Blaine. "And now with everything going on here, I feel like it's some big cosmic sign that I'm supposed to be dead."

Blaine didn't say anything. Instead he moved to crawl under the covers.

"What are you doing?" Kurt muttered.

"It's almost dawn," Blaine said, lying down. "My turn to sleep."

"No coffin?" Kurt quipped.

Blaine smiled wryly but it came out as more of a grimace. "No. I stocked the kitchen downstairs so you can eat if you'd like."

Kurt nodded and slid out of bed. He got to the door before Blaine's quiet voice ghosted over to him.

"I was watching you sleep because I'm in your dreams and I terrified you last night. I wanted to make sure that you wouldn't have any nightmares. And I'm sorry for scaring you at your house. I know I was forceful, but I was frightened that if I didn't get to you in time that you'd die."

Kurt nodded silently before leaving the room.

***

He waited a couple of hours, eating apples and pepper jack cheese in the kitchen before he took the knife from the block and sat down against the counter. His heart hammered and he checked the reflection in the knife a million times to make sure there wasn't someone behind him before he brought it to his wrist and drew across it sharply. 

He hissed at the pain as thick red blood trailed down his wrist and onto his palm, pooling there briefly before moving on to his fingers. He bit his lip as he shakily brought the knife to his other wrist and--

The knife was suddenly gone from his grasp and Blaine was in front of him, drawing his wrist to his mouth and licking across it, sealing the wound before sucking all the blood off his fingers. 

"Don't," he murmured, lips gently caressing Kurt's fingers. "Do that again." In a blink, he'd vanished.

Walking through the mansion minutes later, Kurt found all the sharp object removed.

***

Day and night blended together when there was only artificial light.

Perhaps a day passed.

And then another.

And then Kurt found himself trying again. 

He wasn't as foolish this time. He knew that open wounds weren't the way to go.

He found the liquor cabinet and took out the cognac.

And the scotch.

And the tequila.

And the vodka. 

And he mixed them all together in a big glass jar thing that he found next to them, cleaned out the dusty glass and poured himself a cup, sitting on the thick lush rug in front of the fireplace, idly tracing the pomegranate patterns with his finger as he gulped the awful concoction down.

Then another glass.

Then a third.

Then a fourth.

After the fifth it got easier and easier because his tongue and throat were practically numb and he just held the glass jar in his hands and tipped it down his throat, wincing at the burn. 

Everything went blurry and before he knew it he was bent over a toilet, Blaine's fingers shoved down his throat and making him throw up everything. Acid and bile burned his mouth but Blaine wouldn't stop pressing his fingers down his throat until Kurt was dry-heaving over the toilet.

Blaine disappeared and came back with what looked like half a roll of bread and a glass of water. He gave Kurt small pieces of the bread to chew methodically, making sure that he ate the whole half-loaf. Then he bit his own wrist and poured a couple of drops into the glass of water, before shoving it at Kurt.

Kurt pressed back against the wall but Blaine brought the glass against his lips, tipping it until Kurt started to drink, his insides no longer burning as Blaine's blood healed everything.

All the alcohol and dangerous chemicals vanished from the cabinets as well.

***

Kurt sighed, the last of his breath coming out as bubbles and floating to the top of the tub. He just relaxed against the cool ceramic of the bathtub as his lungs steadily burned.

A cold hand gently grasped the back of his neck and pulled him up. Kurt blinked the water out of his eyes as he looked at Blaine who was leaning over the bath's ledge, looking at him sadly. "Drowning? Really?"

Kurt shrugged. "I thought it was very Hamlet of me."

Blaine sighed, pressing his forehead against Kurt's. "Kurt...please stop doing this."

"Will you let me go home?"

"Where you can rescind your invitation and leave me stranded outside your house while you try and kill yourself?"

"You have no right to keep me here."

"You're right," Blaine said. "But I'm going to keep you here anyways. I don't want you to die."

"It's not your choice."

"I don't care," Blaine whispered. "You saved my...well, not life. I'm not even sure how to live. But you saved me. From that lighthouse. I'm going to save you too, no matter what."

"You can't always be there--"

"I can. I drank some of you blood, Kurt. The night I gave you mine for the first time so that you could heal. It's inside of me and I can always feel your blood. Whether it's spiking with adrenaline because you're jumping off the staircase, or it's spilling on the floor from a cut, or if the blood/alcohol level has spiked, or even if the oxygen percentage has dropped due to suffocation." His eyes traced Kurt's face carefully. "I'll always feel when you're in trouble and nothing, not even a rescinded invitation, will be able to stop me from getting to your side in time to save you."

Kurt glanced down at the rim of the tub.

"And I think..." Blaine continued quietly. "That you need to start sleeping during the day so I can keep a better eye on you."

***

That night, Blaine kept Kurt awake until dawn with ridiculous stories of Cape Cod in the early twentieth century, flicking Kurt whenever he started to doze off.

As the sun rose, they climbed into bed together and slept through the day.