Kurt finishes with the living room sketch Blaine had started merely seconds after his gloved finger sweeps over the iPad screen. It's easy once he gets rid of Blaine's atrocious carpet color. Kurt had known how he wanted the living room to look from its inception. Before he put pencil to paper, he had a finished image of the room in his mind. He simply drew the living room of the house he had long dreamed of buying for his parents when he was a child – when they were poor and his father worked long hours, double-shifts at two separate jobs, to make ends meet.

On the days when his father was gone nearly a full 24-hour stretch and didn't return till the early morning, Kurt dreamed about becoming a famous performer, of traveling the world and being a big name star so he could make life better for his mom and dad. He wanted to buy them a house in a respectable suburb of Ohio, where his mother could chat with the neighborhood gals over apple crumb muffins and games of Bridge, and where his father had nothing else to worry about but the height of his perfectly manicured lawn.

After his mother passed and Andrew Smythe swooped in, offering to take Kurt under his wing, Kurt had hoped to still fulfill that dream for his dad, but he didn't get the chance.

Kurt decorates this living room as a private memorial to that dream. He chooses for the walls a shade of Wedgewood Jasperware pink - the same color as the plates his mother had inherited from her mother. She kept them on display in their dining room, protected by a walnut and glass China cabinet that Kurt's father had built her for their tenth wedding anniversary. Even through the hard times, even when his mother sold off her best pearls and his father pawned his grandfather's pocket watch, those plates remained a fixture in the Hummel household Kurt's entire life.

Kurt changes Blaine's dull carpet selection to a rich sienna. It's a color that reminds Kurt of fall in New England, of the chestnut tree that bloomed outside his old bedroom window, of his mother's homemade milk chocolate ganache, and, he's ashamed to admit, of Sebastian's hair – a handsome color Kurt has always envied. Sebastian didn't have to put anything in it to make it look presentable, and even unwashed the highlights in his hair shone like a new penny.

Once upon a time, Kurt would have given almost anything to have Sebastian's hair.

Kurt makes a note to have the scuffed and worn leather couch redone in blue velvet – lapis, like his mother's eyes – and to replace the original bent and missing rivets with brand new ones of burnished copper. He replaces the heavy curtains on the windows with sheer white fabric ones that filter the sunlight to give the room a light, airy feel.

It's designing the bedrooms that Kurt hits a roadblock. He was never fond of the gold paint Andrew used in the bedrooms of this house, or of the outdated wallpaper from the first house they lived in. Kurt favors a pale grey, and he knows that Sebastian would like walls of forest green and dark wood, but the rooms he's decorating don't belong to them. This isn't their house - their prison - anymore. Kurt and Sebastian have new lives and a new home.

Kurt has to stop thinking of this house that way.

Kurt distances himself, driving a mental wedge between him and any emotional connection he has to this house – a connection that would turn his stomach to ice if he could feel it – and conjures up color palettes and combinations he thinks might work. He comes up with a few passable possibilities, but nothing he would consider spot on. He wishes Maylee would wander by so he can have another artistically-minded person to bounce ideas off of. But with no Maylee to be seen, Kurt closes his eyes and tries to visualize what Blaine would choose. Kurt can't go by the bedroom of the beach house, of course, since Blaine doesn't actually live there, and to be frank, it looks like it was decorated by a twelve-year-old. But what about Blaine's wardrobe? Blaine favors a classic look, sticks to muted versions of masculine colors – the foundation of any versatile wardrobe, in Kurt's opinion – and by his coloring, Kurt would consider Blaine a winter. Kurt's mind fills with accent colors he's seen in Blaine's closet - a maroon shirt, a navy cardigan, taupe suede shoes, indigo denim jeans…

Those gorgeously fitted, body-hugging jeans that Blaine wears so well.

He's wearing them today, as a matter of fact. Kurt only needs to take the stairs down to the basement to get a glimpse of them.

Kurt's tongue sweeps over his lips. It does nothing to soothe his eternally dry skin, but that's not the point.

He licks his lips and a fantasy of Blaine kissing him forms inside his mind – of Blaine, in this bedroom of autumn earth tones and cherry wood furniture, kissing Kurt's lips, running his fingers through Kurt's hair, raising the hem of his shirt up his torso as Kurt allows himself to be undressed, to be savored, preparing to be worshipped...

“Working hard, are you?”

A foot taps Kurt's leg and Kurt squeaks in surprise.

“Oh!” he says, eyes snapping open. He fumbles the iPad, but catches it before it crashes to the floor and hugs it to his chest. “Yes. Yes, I am.” Kurt readjusts his seat on the hard ground with a cheerful bounce. “I'm just…” He looks up, expecting to see one of the electricians or painters, either drumming up conversation on their break or inquiring after Blaine, but instead he sees the dour face of Alex Norton, glaring down at him, glasses sliding down the slope of his nose and perching on the pointed tip, ready to fall off. “What are…what are you doing here?” Kurt asks, scooting toward the corner behind him. “I thought you were only sticking around till we found Sammy.”

“I have more interest in this renovation than you know,” Alex says, pushing his glasses futilely up his nose, the frames sliding back into place the moment he removes his finger from the bridge.

“Okay…” Kurt says, standing and taking an unsteady step back. He doesn't see Alex move, but the man's body seems to be getting closer, blocking off Kurt's escape. “And what interest is that, pray tell?” Kurt stalls, eyes glancing about, looking for a way out. He prays someone will walk by, someone who can help, but this portion of the house has gone unusually quiet all of a sudden.

“My interests are my own business,” Alex replies with a haughty air. “I think the more pertinent question here is…where is Andrew Smythe?”

Kurt stares into Alex's eyes – a dull whiskey-hazel that Kurt hadn't noticed before, similar in shade to Blaine's but with none of Blaine's intensity, none of his cleverness, none of his life. But the lackluster imitations that are Alex's hazel eyes glitter with a portentous triumph – like he knows something he's not telling, something he plans to hold over Kurt very soon.

Kurt shakes his head, stepping to the side instead of backing away. With the stairwell to the basement in his sights, Kurt's only thoughts are of getting away – getting away and getting to Blaine.

“I don't…I don't quite know what you mean,” Kurt stammers, confused by this man's persistence towards him. “Andrew Smythe is dead…I believe. Where else would he be?”

The egregious man smirks, more determined than before.

“And what happened to his niece, hmm?”

“His…his niece?” Kurt steps to the side one more time, but Alex matches him step for step.

“Yes, his niece. Teresa Calhoun. And I want the full story,” Alex says, pursuing Kurt as Kurt edges toward the stairs. “Not the bullpucky they printed in the papers.”

“I…I don't understand,” Kurt says, reaching the steps, his whole body shaking, porcelain joints clattering beneath his biohazard suit. “Why do you care?”

Alex anticipates Kurt's break for the stairs and puts out an arm to bar him. He bends forward, nearly pinning Kurt to the wall. His eyes become serpentine slits, examining Kurt closely, his gaze like blunt fingernails scratching down Kurt's skin, tearing his carefully mended cracks back to slivers.

“Who are you?” Alex asks. He reaches for Kurt but Kurt shirks away. “What are you?”

“I…I am n-no one that concerns you,” Kurt stutters, putting a foot out to touch the top step.

Alex grabs Kurt's hand, prying it from the iPad against his chest, and closes his fingers around it. The man freezes at the feeling of solid and unyielding where there should be supple flesh.

“You're it, aren't you?” Alex draws Kurt close and speaks into his ear. “You're what I'm looking for. You're one of them.” Alex pulls back to look into Kurt's glass eyes with a smile of astonishment. “It worked.”

Kurt yanks his hand away and bolts down the stairs, no longer caring about his fears of the basement. Alex Norton, who seems to know about Kurt, about his predicament, frightens Kurt more.

“Blaine!” Kurt yells, clamoring down the steps with Alex close at his heels, trying to grab hold of his biohazard suit.

“Kurt!” He hears Blaine's voice, distant but coming closer. “Kurt! I'm coming!”

“Blaine!” Kurt screams again, feeling a slight tug as Alex catches the collar but not competently. “Help! Hel---oof!”

Blaine catches Kurt at the bottom of the steps, his foot sliding out from under him as he trips over the final stair with Alex shooting out of the stairwell after him. Blaine's eyes graze past a stricken Kurt and land on the older man, his face screwing up with a muddled expression.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Blaine yells, shoving Kurt behind him and holding on to him tight with one arm. “There's nothing left for you to do here! Why can't you leave us alone?”

“I think there's something your friend there isn't telling us,” Alex scowls, baring square teeth and jabbing a bony finger over Blaine's shoulder.

“So what?” Blaine asks, pulling himself taller to hide Kurt better. “What does he owe you? What's your fascination with him?”

The workers in the basement gather around, some out of curiosity, others to be on hand to help if a fight breaks out.

“He is my key to solving a very important puzzle,” Alex says, trying to slink past Blaine only to be obstructed by two electricians.

“What puzzle?” Blaine peeks over his shoulder at Kurt, trembling against Blaine's back. “What are you even talking about? You wanted to be here when we found Sammy. Well, we found him. So now you can go.”

“No,” Alex says with a furious determination, an almost fanatical belligerence in the set of his brow, the flush in his cheeks, the rigid lines of his entire face. Blaine stands nose to nose with the man, staring at his own reflection in the ebony abyss of the man's pupils. “I refuse to leave these premises until I get a word with that…” Alex's eyes jump at the sound of scuffling behind Blaine's body, where Kurt stays crouched close to the ground, but something captures the man's attention, and he stares off at it, the conversation dropping like a lead weight at their feet.

Blaine watches the man's eyes, the way they focus to a single point and then widen in surprise. He takes a subconscious step forward, but is pushed back by the men and women still forming a semi-circle around him, keeping him confined to the bottom of the staircase.

Blaine follows Alex's eye line, sees his gaze fixed on the Andrew Smythe puppet, top half exposed, bottom half still trapped within the wall.

“I…I didn't think there was another one,” he mumbles, peering between the heads of those around him to get a better look. “I thought there were only the two.”

Blaine's head turns, his eyebrows pulling together.

“What do you mean, you thought there were only two?” Blaine asks, but even though they're only a foot's distance apart, Alex doesn't seem to hear him. “What do you know about these puppets?”

That Alex seems to hear. His eyes shoot down to meet Blaine's, their original victorious gleam cloaked beneath a tidal wave of questions. But there's also a look of confirmation – one that Blaine isn't comfortable with.

Alex seems to register that Blaine has him figured out and he turns, bolting back up the stairs.

“Hey!” Blaine calls after him, but the older man is swifter in his Cole Haan loafers than Blaine could have predicted. He makes his way to the top and takes off out-of-sight. Blaine has a fleeting thought that he should follow, that he should run him down and question him, but for the sake of his cowering boyfriend slowly straightening to a standing position, Blaine is just happy to see the man go.

“It's alright,” Blaine says, turning and taking Kurt in his arms. “It's alright. He's gone now.”

Kurt rests his head on Blaine's shoulder, arms still hugging the iPad protectively against his chest.

“No,” Kurt moans, keeping his voice low. “No, I don't think it is okay.”

“Why?” Blaine asks, looking into Kurt's smooth, bisque face. “Are you alright? Did he hurt you? Did he…break you?”

“No,” Kurt answers, sniffling as if he's crying, “but I'm not sure it was a good idea to let him go.”

“Wh---why not?” Blaine asks, but suspicion creeps in and he realizes he already knows why.

“Because…” Kurt says, his voice small with fear, “I think he knows about the spell.”

***

Blaine hangs up his phone after leaving his fifteenth message for Gary, frustrated that the man is not picking up.

“No luck?” Kurt asks. He stands nearby a pacing Blaine and examines the porcelain Andrew Smythe puppet from a distance, avoiding looking directly at the blank, unpainted eyes staring straight over their heads.

“No,” Blaine replies, turning the volume of his ringer on high and then shoving his phone into his pocket. “Nothing. I've been calling for over an hour. Gary's not picking up, I only have Ted's email, and as for Alex…” Blaine runs a hand through his hair, blowing out a breath through pursed lips. “I've Googled every variation of his name I can think of, but it's like he doesn't exist.” He walks up behind Kurt and puts his hands on Kurt's shoulders, rubbing gently. The electricians and the clean-up crew have moved on to other parts of the house, leaving Kurt and Blaine in the basement to sort out the mystery of the puppet stuck inside the wall.

“Do you think he could be in there?” Blaine asks. It had been on his mind since he first saw the puppet, but he didn't want to think about it.

He didn't want it to be true.

Blaine is not a violent person; he wouldn't ever consider taking a life.

But if Andrew Smythe is in that puppet, Blaine could see himself smashing it…or at least walling the bastard back in.

“I don't see how,” Kurt says, tilting his head. “I've never seen this puppet before. In order to transfer his soul, he would have had to have been with it while he was dying, performing the ritual. But he was with us when he died, lying on my bunk, confessing all his sins, telling us everything he had done…”

“Could someone else have done it?” Blaine asks, trying to overlook the trauma this man selfishly inflicted on Kurt and Sebastian by sitting with them in that room, relieving himself of his guilt to these destroyed boys, not lifting a finger to redeem himself by reversing what he had done, until the very moment of his passing. “What about his niece…Terry?”

“Teresa,” Kurt finishes, wrapping his arms around himself. “I don't think so. From what I could tell, she couldn't read, didn't really speak. I don't think she understood…us. I think we frightened her.”

Blaine gives Kurt's shoulders a squeeze and a psychic shiver travels through Blaine's fingers, tingling in zigzag trails along his arms. He feels Kurt's confusion, his sorrow, his discomfort as he stamps down memories from the past that start to well up at the sight of the lost puppet.

It's heartbreaking, but it gives Blaine an idea.

“Maybe…maybe I can tell…if he's in there,” Blaine offers, staggering the words as he comes to grips with what exactly investigating Andrew's puppet will entail.

Kurt blinks his eyes in thought, their tiny click like the clinking of tea cups. If it hadn't been for the utter silence in the room, Blaine wouldn't have even noticed the sound. As it is, it seems softer than it was when Kurt first came to life, as if the porcelain of his face and eyelids isn't as solid, that it might have some flexibility to it, more spring. It's the same with Kurt's shoulders. As Blaine massages them, they don't feel quite so rigid, like there might be more than ceramic beneath his touch.

Blaine is probably imagining it. He's more than likely feeling the cashmere of Kurt's sweater bunching beneath the biohazard suit. Blaine wants Kurt to be real so badly, his mind is making him that way.

“How do you mean?” Kurt asks. “With your vision?”

“When I first touched you and Sebastian, I saw things,” Blaine explains, “images. I felt you…”

“Like what?”

“Well, from Sebastian I saw incredible pain and rage,” Blaine says, lowering his hands from Kurt's shoulders and folding the puppet into his arms. “And from you…”

The memory resurfaces and Blaine nearly swallows his tongue.

“And from me?” Kurt asks, leaning farther into Blaine's embrace to look into his face, inquisitive blue eyes shining over a sweetly bright smile. “What did you see from me?”

Blaine clamps his teeth together tight as the voices return, circulating inside his head, peppered by a chorus of breathy gasps and nervous giggles.

“Can you feel that?”

“I do.”

“What does it feel like?”

“It feels like…like summer sun all over my body…”

“And what else?”

“It feels like…It feels like you. Everything is you…all around me…it's you…”

“I saw your eyes,” Blaine says with a shudder of suppressed ecstasy. “Your beautiful blue eyes. And love. I felt love.”

Kurt ducks his head and Blaine pictures him blushing, his cheeks burning beneath the biohazard suit in that inexplicable way they do. It should be impossible, but there it is nonetheless. Blaine takes a look at the Andrew Smythe puppet – eyes unblinking, face featureless, body unmoving. Even just looking at him, Blaine suspects he's lifeless, but he needs to make sure.

Blaine unwinds his arms from Kurt's body and approaches the puppet. It's made from the same type of porcelain, but it's so different from Kurt. Kurt's painted flesh is pale but subtly pink, with painstaking details added – freckles across his nose and lines on his flesh; he even has fingerprints. But this other puppet is ghastly white with no spark, no soul. Blaine reaches out a hand and places it on the puppet's shoulder. He hears Kurt behind him make a noise, and then nothing. Blaine closes his eyes, trying to call to mind anything he knows about Andrew to provoke him into life – Sebastian's anger, Kurt's smile, the journals, the fire, the look on the man's face when he cursed his son and tossed his acceptance letter into the fireplace.

But no. Not even the shadow of a memory. No spirit ever inhabited this puppet.

Andrew Smythe is gone.

“So…anything?” Kurt pipes up, his voice hushed, guarded.

“No,” Blaine says, taking a big gulp in relief. “Not a thing. He's not in here.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm certain,” Blaine says, stepping away and hugging Kurt, needing him in his arms. “He's not in there. He must not have gotten the chance.”

Kurt melts against him, sighing, feeling lighter in Blaine's arms with that burden gone.

“I say we call it quits for today,” Blaine says, rubbing a hand down Kurt's back.

“Can you do that?”

“Yeah. I can leave a key with Lorelei since they need to finish with the copper wiring. I trust her to lock up. Besides…I need to get out of this place.”

“Yeah,” Kurt agrees. “I know how you feel.”

Blaine turns Kurt away from the wall, away from the puppet that Blaine hasn't a clue what to do with, and heads for the stairs.

“So, do you still feel up to going out this evening?”

“I do if you do,” Kurt says, loosening the ties to the biohazard hood so Blaine can see the smile on his face.

“I do,” Blaine says. “I even know the perfect place.”

***

“So, do you often watch movies in cemeteries?” Kurt whispers.

“Nope,” Blaine says, popping a kernel of popcorn in his mouth. “This is my first time.”

“How ever did you know about this?” Kurt chuckles. “Do they do this all the time here?”

“I found this group on the Internet. I thought it might be a good way for us to hang out together.”

Blaine looks over at a boy wearing a black t-shirt with the words Gothic Volunteer Alliance printed across the back in silver letters. Blaine had remembered seeing some teenagers wearing that same shirt during his and Kurt's mini-golf adventure of the other night – the same teenagers who had complimented Kurt on his doll make-up - and Googled them. He found their Facebook page and discovered their plans for a weekly late night cemetery film fest. It said everybody welcome, so Blaine decided to give it a shot. He figured here Kurt would be able to sit out in the open, uncovered, around people who wouldn't give him a second look as opposed to a crowded theater with his hoodie drawn tight over his face.

Blaine's eyes glide over the group of teenagers in front of them, all dressed in variations of dark (mainly black) colored clothes – some in jeans and t-shirts, some in leather jackets and chains, some in elaborate Victorian garb complete with lacey parasols, most wearing whiter than white foundation on their faces. Some have sunglasses on, a few with red-tinted lenses, and others wear different kinds of costume contact lenses on their eyes.

Yup. By comparison, Kurt is far from unusual here.

Blaine and Kurt chose a spot near the back, sitting on two huge adjoining headstones, while the rest of the group sits on blankets between the graves, gazing up at a portable screen showing a black and white Marlene Dietrich/Gary Cooper flick. Blaine saw the name of the movie written on a poster when they got there, but he's spent so much time side-eying Kurt that he doesn't recall what they're watching.

“I hope you're not uncomfortable,” Blaine says when he sees Kurt shift his seat, “you know, being in a cemetery.”

“Oh, no,” Kurt says, eyes glued to the couple on the screen. “Cemeteries have never really bothered me. I'm in one, you know?” Blaine stares at Kurt blankly, and it takes a moment before Kurt acknowledges that look, an awkward half-smile on his lips. “You know, because I'm…it was supposed to be a…it's not a really good joke.”

“No,” Blaine agrees, chuckling softly. “It's not.”

Kurt turns his face back to the movie, mortified by his faux pas, but Blaine doesn't look away, his gaze on Kurt's eyes as the puppet takes in the action on the screen, sitting forward, as if ready to rush into the film any moment. He watches Kurt's legs swing lightly against the square granite headstone he's perched on, fidgeting excitedly, completely absorbed by everything going on. This seems so familiar, so much like a dream he's had before, or a memory, even though Blaine has never been here, especially not with Kurt.

“Do you really think it could work out for them?” Kurt asks hopefully. “Do you think they can fall in love and live happily ever after?”

Those words ring in Blaine's ears, like he's heard Kurt say them before.

“I don't see why not,” Blaine answers, tossing a piece of popcorn in his mouth. “Stranger things have happened.” Kurt turns to Blaine, and Blaine gives him a knowing wink and a teasing smile. Kurt adverts his bashful eyes to the bag of popcorn in Blaine's hand. He licks his lips with the memory of it, but he doesn't take a piece.

Besides, watching Blaine eat it is more delicious than it could ever actually be.

“Have you…” Kurt bites his lip as best he can, the move looking natural even though for him it's not, “have you ever been in love?”

Blaine stops chewing his popcorn and swallows hard. In a flash, he remembers where this sense of déjà vu is sprouting from. His vision – the movie, the popcorn, the headstone, it's all here.

All that's missing are the words he says next. But should he? Should he admit to his feelings? He doesn't want to scare Kurt off or pressure him. They have barely known each other a week. But there's something about Kurt. Something that doesn't only fill Blaine's heart and mind, it overwhelms Blaine's memory – as if he's known Kurt in the past, in other lifetimes that were not entirely his own.

In essence, Blaine's vision proves that he has already admitted his feelings – in this lifetime, at least. Blaine knows saying them is right because he's heard himself say it, and he's already seen Kurt's reaction. He has nothing to fear.

“Once,” Blaine admits, looking down at his shoes in the grass, his cheeks coloring, though Kurt won't see the change in the dark.

“Ah,” Kurt says, nodding with disappointment and turning away. “What happened? How did it end?”

Blaine chuckles a bit, his focus switching from his shoes back up to the screen.

“It hasn't ended yet,” Blaine says, placing another piece of popcorn in his mouth and chewing thoughtfully. He watches the two lovers on the screen embrace, and then dares a glance in Kurt's direction.

Kurt is staring at him, his mouth dropped open, his eyes wide. Blaine laughs at the adorably startled look on his face. He presses a kiss to his own index finger, and puts that finger to Kurt's lips. Then he curls his fingers beneath Kurt's chin and closes the puppet's mouth.

“You shouldn't sit with your mouth open like that,” he says. “You'll catch flies.”

***

Blaine doesn't know about Kurt, but he watches only snippets of the movie. Had Blaine not seen Desire a hundred times before, he'd be completely lost as to the plot. Kurt is much more interesting to watch anyway, especially after Blaine's confession. When the feature ends, they make their way through the crowd of moviegoers milling about the gravesite to Blaine's car. The movie is set-up on a grass slope above an asphalt road, so Blaine was able to park relatively close. Another movie is about to begin and a few random people entreat them to stay, but the two politely decline. Both Kurt and Blaine have somewhere else they want to be, and it would be nice to spend some time alone. Kurt slips into his seat and rests his head against the window, a small smile curling his painted lips as he looks up at the starlit sky. Blaine starts the engine and immediately tunes the radio to Kurt's favorite big band station. Mellow music fills the car, and they drive in companionable silence back to the shore.

It's close to two a.m. when Blaine pulls into the driveway of the beach house.

They get out of the car - Blaine first, who rounds to Kurt's side, opens his door, and takes his hand. He leads Kurt to the house, walking by his side, leaning lightly against his arm.

“Thanks for coming to watch that movie with me,” Blaine says, putting the key in the lock and opening the front door. “I know the venue was a little…odd, but I had fun. It's been so long since I've been to the movies.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” Kurt says, stepping over the threshold and into the lightless living room. “And thank you for going to so many lengths to find places I can go. Believe it or not, I think it's been a little longer since I've been to a movie than it has for you.”

“Maybe,” Blaine says, the skin by his eyes crinkling as he smiles, “but only by a couple of years.”

“Oh, a couple of years, at least.”

Blaine puts a hand to Kurt's back and escorts him through the living room. The house is dark. Sebastian must already be in bed. From the looks of the living room it seems that the wooden puppet didn't make it out of his bedroom at all that day, not even to peruse the Stanford website via the TV. A knot forms in Blaine's throat thinking about Sebastian lying in bed all day, staring up at the ceiling, feeling lonely and depressed, with only his loyal cat for company. Blaine can't take for granted that Sebastian's best friend in the world has been attached to his hip for the last couple of days, can't ignore the fact that Sebastian is watching the boy he's loved for decades fall in love with someone else.

There has to be something Blaine can do. If Sebastian doesn't want to go to the project house, there has to be somewhere else they can take him. It's too late to think about it now, especially with Kurt there beside him, not yet ready to see the night over, but he'll set his mind to it while he sleeps and see if he can come up with a solution.

Blaine opens his bedroom door and Kurt heads straight for the bed. He kicks off his shoes and lays down on the mattress, stretching out with his arms above his head.

“Are you tired?” Blaine asks, toeing off his own shoes and undoing his bow tie, subtly watching Kurt's body as he stretches, trying not to stare when his cashmere sweater slips up his stomach.

“No,” Kurt says. Kurt follows Blaine's movements as he loosens his tie, putting a finger into the knot and tugging it till it comes undone, the ends hanging down from his neck. Blaine stretches out beside Kurt and yawns, covering his mouth with the flat of his palm, squinty eyes smiling at Kurt while Kurt giggles.

“How about you?” Kurt asks.

“Hmmm, yes and no,” Blaine replies, turning on his side to face Kurt more completely. “I should be tired, and if I close my eyes I'd probably pass right out, but everything that's happened in the last few days…it's been so exciting.” Blaine reaches out a hand and takes Kurt's, holding it gently, running his thumb over Kurt's porcelain knuckles. “I don't want it to end.”

Kurt smiles, snuggling closer to Blaine, eyes locked to Blaine's soft gaze. Blaine meets Kurt's eyes with a shy smile, hinting at some secret he has yet to reveal, and Kurt, with not many secrets of his own left to tell, is dying to know what it might be.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Kurt whispers.

Blaine looks at the perfect contours of Kurt's face - his soft, unglazed complexion glowing in the low-light. When Kurt first opened his blue glass eyes, when he first started to walk and talk and Blaine thought he was on the brink of losing his mind, he would never have imagined how fond he would become of Kurt's flawless, hand-painted cheeks, or the pretty rose color of his lips. He seems so real in most aspects, more so every single day. When Blaine stares into Kurt's eyes, he can imagine him like the boy in the black and white photographs. But even if Kurt stays a puppet for the rest of his life, Blaine couldn't be more enthralled with him, more fond of him…

…more in love with him than he is at this exact moment in time.

“Blaine?” Kurt asks with concern as Blaine seems to drift away. “Blaine, are you alright?” Blaine gives Kurt a goofy, lopsided grin in response. “Maybe you should go to sleep. You look positively loopy.”

“No,” Blaine says, shaking his head against the pillow. “No, I don't want to go to sleep.”

Kurt makes a face, which would probably be his brow knitting together if his porcelain skin had the flexibility to move that way.

“Then, what do you want to do?” Kurt asks.

“I…” Blaine's many secret desires stop up his throat so that he's left with his mouth hanging open, and Kurt chuckles. That sound, that musical sound of Kurt laughing at Blaine, speeds Blaine's heart. “I want to kiss you.”

Kurt laughs again, but Blaine simply stares, a low simmer in eyes gleaming gold. Kurt's laughter fades, stunned by those eyes, as Kurt searches Blaine's face for the truth.

“You…you're serious,” Kurt says. “You want to kiss me?”

“Yes,” Blaine says, sliding a hair closer, praying that Kurt won't move away. “I can't stop thinking about it.” He pulls up nose to nose, eyes roaming over Kurt's face, even as his cheeks flame red. Blaine swallows, finding his voice where it left him when Kurt's lips part and he gasps. “I would love to kiss you.” Blaine runs his nose against Kurt's, waiting for a response. “Would that be alright?”

“Y-yes,” Kurt stutters. “Th-that would be alri---“

Blaine's lips against Kurt's cuts the word in half. Kurt's skin under Blaine's mouth feels exactly the way Blaine thought it would – hard, cold, but not lifeless, not without its own beauty and enigmatic appeal. Blaine had prepared himself for the unnaturalness of Kurt's skin, but it's not like that at all. The ceramic warms to his touch, and Kurt leans in as Blaine kisses him deeper. Kurt puts a hand to Blaine's cheek and Blaine turns in to it, leaving a kiss to Kurt's wrist before returning to his mouth. Blaine kisses the corner of Kurt's lips, then his cheeks, paving a trail to his ear.

“Can you feel me?” Blaine whispers across Kurt's skin and Kurt closes his eyes, concentrating on Blaine's touch.

“I…” Kurt pinpoints the places where Blaine's human skin brushes his porcelain body and tries to connect it to any memory of feel he might have hiding in his brain.

“It's okay,” Blaine says, kissing down Kurt's neck, sighing, trying not to sound disappointed, and Kurt knows that Blaine is about to give up. Kurt wants to scream. He wants to cry, but he can't. He's not able. He doesn't want Blaine to stop. It doesn't matter if he can't feel in the way Blaine feels. He simply wants to know that those feelings are there. They exist. They exist for Blaine. They can exist for him, too.

“No!” Kurt comes as close to crying as he can when the word passes his lips, almost crumbling completely when he feels Blaine move away. “No, don't stop! Please!”

“I…are you sure?” Blaine asks. He hovers close, his lips wet and swollen. It's the most sweetly erotic thing Kurt has ever seen. Without needing an answer, Blaine crawls closer to Kurt's side.

“Yes,” Kurt says, grabbing Blaine's arm and tugging him down toward him. “Yes. I'm sure.”

“I don't want to…hurt you.” Blaine gestures over Kurt's body - a body that was once broken but which now, under careful inspection, doesn't look like it has ever been anything but whole.

“You won't,” Kurt says, shaking his head, moving it aside to expose his neck. “Please. I need you.”

Blaine ducks his head, laughing quietly, a slip of sound like stones skipping over the surface of a lake.

“What?” Kurt asks, not sure if he should be offended.

“Nothing,” Blaine backpedals, hoping Kurt doesn't get the wrong idea. “It's…no one's ever told me that before. I liked hearing it. I like hearing it from you.”

Kurt smiles into the next kiss, lying as pliant beneath Blaine's body as he can, thinking real thoughts, about being a real human boy, with real human skin that Blaine could touch, that Blaine could enjoy. But the more they kiss, the more Kurt realizes that doesn't seem to matter – being real or being made of porcelain, none of that matters to Blaine. Blaine likes Kurt for the person he is – made of ceramic or flesh.

Blaine might even love him.

They kiss and kiss until Blaine's mouth goes dry. They kiss until Kurt moans, his mind snatching daydreams of kisses from a long time past and bringing them to the present, using them to replace what he doesn't feel with an intense fantasy of Blaine's mouth on his skin. He can almost feel the softness of his lips and the heat of Blaine's tongue. He lets his imagination soar and help him with this, and it's almost good enough…

…almost.

They kiss each other until Blaine doesn't remember what breathing without Kurt felt like and Kurt's hand fisting in Blaine's hair becomes a permanent fixture. Promises and confessions are whispered in the dark, and Kurt becomes so overfilled with glee he could cry human tears.

Kurt has no memory of falling asleep.

Blaine doesn't know when exactly he's pulled into another vision.

***

Sebastian hears Kurt and Blaine when they arrive back at the beach house. It's not like he can sleep, or that they're being particularly quiet. Abigail has been contentedly snoozing away for hours, resting on his stomach while the wooden puppet strokes through her fur. He hears the two walk to Blaine's bedroom, talking and giggling. The bedroom door shuts, there's some hushed whispering, and shortly after the noises start – noises that send long-forgotten fingers of heat and cold tearing through him. These combating sensations shouldn't exist in his body, but have been cropping up more and more, like his dusty memory has kicked into overdrive...or like he's borrowing them from somewhere.

Like they don't belong to him.

Sebastian hears Kurt moan – that beautiful, sacred sound that has only existed before in Sebastian's dreams – and his eyes fall shut.

With that one sound, Sebastian knows he's too late. He's lost Kurt.

He's never going to forgive himself for not trying harder, for not being what Kurt needed instead of trying to bend Kurt to him, trying to make Kurt come to him.

He also knows that until the day he dies, he will despise Blaine Anderson, no matter what debt Sebastian owes to him.

Sebastian wants to stuff a pillow in his ears - or better yet, over his face - and fall into a coma. If he were human, he would leave the beach house, hit the first bar on the block, and drink Kurt away. He'd also find some naïve, questioning boy about Kurt's age and own him, while in his head he dreamed of Kurt. He'd done that many times before. But Sebastian's not human. He won't ever be human again, and to add to the insults, he hooked himself to this wagon of his own personal torment and suffering for eternity. Sebastian knows he won't survive in this world without Blaine's help, and that makes him want to go out to the dining room, find the wire cutters, and clip his joints free. Let them roll him back to that room in the basement and fill it in with cement. Let him rot for eternity in the damp and the wet.

There's nothing for him in life now.

He lifts Abigail gently and lays her down on the mattress. Then he climbs off the bed. He wanders out into the hallway, sits on the floor in front of Blaine's door, and listens, torturing himself with those kisses and moans he thought were always meant for him, would someday belong to him.

Nonexistent tears prick his eyes…but if they don't exist, how does he feel them?

It's not him. He knows it's not him, but in the hidden recess of his mind where he has chosen to wallow, he can't bring himself to be afraid of the monster lurking inside him.

“Are you going to let him get away with that?” A deep voice fills Sebastian's brain, blocking out all noise for the seconds that it speaks. “Are you going to let him take what belongs to us?”

Kurt giggles, and Sebastian shakes his head. Yes, it's a spear cracking him back into a thousand shards and splinters, but Kurt is enjoying himself, enjoying life, even if it isn't with him.

“I can't…I can't hurt him,” Sebastian mutters, hearing Blaine moan next. “Kurt really likes him. He's happy. I…I want Kurt to be happy.”

The voice tuts in his head. The sound echoes, hammering around his wooden skull.

“You're such a pansy ass, you know that?” the voice hisses. “Always have been. You lie like a rug and let people wipe their filthy feet all over you. You never take what you want.”

“What does it matter to you?” Sebastian sneers. “You always told me I couldn't have him anyway, that he was too good for me.”

Another tut, this one like a ricocheting bullet shot.

“And there you go being a pansy again. Do you want him?”

Sebastian doesn't have to say a word. The answer to that question has always been yes. Undoubtedly yes. He's wanted a life with Kurt more than he's ever wanted anything – more than school…even more than his freedom.

“Then you know what you have to do.”

An image flares through Sebastian's mind – one of fear and fire.

One of iron and blood.

Sebastian swallows hard.

“No,” he says firmly. “I won't. I won't do that to Kurt.”

Another flare, this one of white light, shoots through Sebastian's skull, tightening around his brain like a vice, filling his head with an immeasurable pain…and then nothing. Sebastian's world goes black and he slumps down to the floor.

“You're useless,” the voice growls, “but no matter. I'm just going to have to do this myself.”