It’s a startling realization that begins it all.

The, almost sadly, obvious thought that everything and everyone dies.

Kurt Hummel was eight when this first popped into his head.

When it was so blatantly clear, time itself paused for him to fully assess the utter and brazen truth.  He was going to die, just like his mother had and his father will.

Like most, this notion subsided into the dusty corners of his mind; only to reappear at sporadic and oddly perceptual intervals…only when Kurt was alone.

It was scary, understandably.  One second, and the oblivion you are taught to fear consumes you forever.  To whatever journey you embark on next is yet to be seen, or even exist.

So why bother riddling yourself through the clown-house mirrors of life?  Why find new angles and explanations when the answer will never be justified?  Life ends, so do the moments people try to retain.

And yet people still try. They disregard it, or “embrace” it, or bury it under miles upon miles of photo albums, they avoid it with slimy shakes and hourly exercises.  They tolerate it, to the best of their abilities.  And some arrive early, because cliffhangers are surely more comforting then closed sentences, right?

This isn’t a story about suicide.

Kurt Hummel is strong…all Hummels are.  He’s smart, brilliant in fact.  Able to manipulate the world’s unsavory advances.   To push the edges and reshape the wrongs until they appear almost right.  He’s a perfectionist in laments terms; always recalculating and organizing the factors that have effect and none at all.  He premeditates the reactions and disposes the unlikely.  He prepares.

Which is why we find him here: collapsed on asphalt with a ruby trail of blood leaking from his porcelain face.  His alabaster skin contrasts harshly with the darker tones of his winter coat and blends, almost seamlessly, with the freshly sprinkled snow.

He’s smirking, as if a private joke had been whispered into his ears.  The pun of which was hilariously designed for this very second (December 30th; Wednesday; 4:05 pm; eastern standard time.)  Irony is a bitchy queen, frequently spewing lobs of unbridled crap onto his life.

Shutting his crystal-blue eyes his smile brightens.  Contentment nestles into his bones and for a mere breath, magic tinkles in his ears; kisses his exposed wrists and breezes over the otherwise silent street.  It glistens like dust in a sunray and makes tiny perforations into Kurt’s otherwise stony heart.

His face shifts into innocence.  He is buoyant…happy, for now.

Like a languid dance his arms move upwards, shoveling the snow in their stretch.  One breath, and they fall down to his sides, only to repeat the same graceful movement.

Moving to the rhythm his feet spread arms-width apart and contract.

“Snow angels?” an amused disembodied voice inquires above.

His eyes open, only to be met with the preppy face of McKinley’s newest jailbait, Blaine Anderson.

(X)

After 1 month at William McKinley High School Blaine had come to the conclusion, that it was hell in physical form.  A whale’s belly with bustling salmon and piranha; the girls were either complete sluts, or if they were Rachel Berry, a 4 foot 5 inch brunette with an ego that could match Napoleon’s.

The boys were…underdeveloped.  Apparently brawn took a much larger precedence over brains.  For despite their lack of brainwaves, the varsity jackets (which happened to be basically any boy who existed in the damn school) were busting-with what could only be assumed as mineral-enhanced-muscles.  Blaine had been bullied before, but here it was either be eaten or be invisible.  Blaine happened to choose the latter.  Which is, consequently, how he came to meet Kurt Hummel.

Kurt Hummel was a member of the infamous, delinquent group, termed the “skanks.”  He was McKinley’s resident faggot (as the jocks so dearly named) and other than the occasional insult, completely silent.

Blaine hadn’t noticed him till his third day.

(X)

He was hiding behind the bleachers, hoping to evade a possible beating.  The crisp winter air racked his spine with shivers, and his hands were sandwiched under his armpits, in the hopes of warmth.  His initial anxiety was slowly dying, only to be re-vitalized by an unexpected voice.

“You’re new,” someone stated behind him.

Turning, he saw a 5-person group, all dressed in various shapes of black.  A girl with pink hair, whom he assumed was the speaker, delicately held the body of her cigarette.  Chin tilted upwards in a state of perpetual pomposity; the entire posse radiated ‘don’t fuck with me.’  Behind her stood three girls; one which raked her raccoon eyes up his quaking frame in a hungry heat, the others (both adorned with studded jackets) looked as if a new punching bag had fallen into their overly-violent laps.

“Um” He uttered stupidly

“What’s your name?” The pink-girl asked, slowly stalking toward him in fluent steps.

“U, Bl-Blaine Anderson.”  He replied, shakily extending his hand in hesitance.

To this gesture she smirked. Casting her roach to the ground, she enclosed his palm in a, somehow, dainty squeeze.

“Quinn” She said, lips peaking in a smirk that was simultaneously coquettish and bitchy.

“So why are you out here, blazer?” she asked, further establishing his displacement

“The football team asked me to meet them.” He admitted meekly, still tense from this current interaction.

She chuckled behind a fishnet glove and with an airy sigh simply said, “Neanderthals.”

Silence hung between the pair, and for a second Blaine forgot the other women were glaring at him.

“So you want a smoke, Dorito-brows?” A brunette voiced behind Quinn.  Her lax jaw chewed on gum, while she leaned into (what he supposes) was meant to a be a seductive pose.

“Um, no thanks.” He said, feeling slightly guilty for turning down what slight politeness they had suggested.

“No worries, Kurt’s not even here.” Quinn said.

“Kurt?” Blaine asked.

However, he did not receive a response.  Quinn and the rest of the biker chicks took their bags and with a flirtatious grin, walked past him and into the building.

Blaine stood there, perplexed by this meeting, and admittedly too frozen to move.  He was left alone, in the bitter cold with burnt cigarette butts and tattered lawn chairs as his vista.

Suddenly he heard footsteps behind him.

Jocks he thought, fear sparking.

However, the sight he was met with was not a hulking ape, but a stoic, pale boy.

“Quinn?” the boy asked quietly, obviously not affronted by Blaine’s inexplicable appearance and asking where the peculiar group had ventured to.

“Um-Uh..” His mouth wouldn’t function.

This boy, no man, this man was…wow.  Chestnut hair painted with the same highlighter pink and tipped with platinum blonde.  His pants were not only tight, but had overlapping straps of fabric falling to knee length, which only made them longer and leaner.  His upper torso was encased in a dark purple jacket, embellished with glistening buttons and chains.  But his face; pink cheeks (most likely from the weather) and aquamarine eyes almost glittering like snowfall.

Blaine was flustered, incapable of forming the simplest words.  White-hot lust vibrated in his core. The urges he had tried to suppress, especially from his parents’ beady gaze, intensified till his very fingertips were quivering with the need to take and devour.

However, Blaine’s internal fire was unobserved by the gorgeous boy.  For within seconds of Blaine’s mindless blabbering he uttered a simple, if not annoyed, “thanks” and departed the now barren area.

Something within him began to thirst.

(X)

Since then Blaine learned that the skanks, although well known for their eccentric parties and odd fashion sense, were imperceptible to the hormonal and crazy student body.  They existed as a piece of furniture in classrooms, resigned and silent.  In truth, Kurt and Quinn happened to be in Blaine’s AP Literature class, where they either had their noses buried in their journals or were sleeping in the darker corners.   Teachers never called on them unless warranted by their raised hand and bullies and nerds alike tended to avert their eyes as they stalked down the hallway.  Gossip flittered around them-mainly Kurt and Quinn, who happened to attend class more then the other three- likes gnats in the deadbeat summer.  They were weird and generally the most enigmatic thing Blaine had ever witnessed.

However, Blaine could not find them when willing to.  He really only recognized the fuchsia locks when absently staring around the classroom.  Because they were like chameleons, blending into the landscape.

Which is why when presented with the bafflingly stunning image of Kurt horizontal on the ground with a trail of blood oozing from his nose, he couldn’t resist the initiative to talk to him.

However, upon walking up to him, all reasonably intelligent thought dispersed like vapor.

“Snow angels?” He inquired, moronically

Kurt’s eyes peaked open and the once blissful smile morphed into one of mocking amusement.  His eyebrows rose in a pointed question.

“Blaine Anderson” Kurt stated.

“Y-you know my name?” Blaine asked, an odd ignition of hope livening in his chest.

“Of course; Blaine Anderson, star student, McKinley’s resident helmet head…without the actual helmet of course.”  Kurt said, his previous movements regaining their inertia.

The embers of hope slowly dissipated.

“Oh” Blaine uttered, opting to change the subject.

“Are you alright?” He asked-why was he nervous?

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked.

“Be-Because you’re…bleeding?”

“Oh, right” Like he had forgotten the blood drying on his cheek.  In response to this, he took his pointer finger and made a swipe across the dripping red.  And with direct eye contact, he lifted it into his mouth and licked it clean.

Blaine was both dumbfounded and almost embarrassingly aroused.

Nevertheless, before he could conjure a witty retort, Kurt received a phone call from Quinn and stood.

“Bye Blaine” he said, walking away with an unbeknownst elegance.

(X)

It would be three weeks until their next conversation and frankly, more blood would be spilt.