--

Days passed, and Kurt adapted.

He made an attempt, at the very least, to hold onto any integrity he could. He refused to take part in any of the vampyr's savage activities, and preferred to keep to himself, sewing more than he ever had in his entire life. He managed to mend his favorite red tunic, to stitch it up from when it had been torn asunder, and he was proud of himself for doing so without a terrible amount of anxiety. The younger vampyrs were soon coming to him and asking him to mend their clothes, which he couldn't help but find ironic. News of his 'healing powers' had gotten around rather quickly, and it seemed as though the younger vampyrs viewed this with no small amount of awe.

Despite this, Kurt never stopped yearning for home--and in the dark hours of the night, with the sounds of the vampyrs fighting brutally outside, he found himself slipping into the darkest corners of his mind. It was no rare occurrence to wake up bathed in cold sweat, having been forced yet again to relive the horror of his rape in nightmares, to return to consciousness knowing that the man who did it was never more than several yards away at any given time. While dull acceptance a steely disposition kept him thriving during daylight hours, he was completely stripped bare when night fell and he had nothing there to anchor him or shield him from the purest form of despair he'd ever experienced in his young life.

The nightmares were ever-present when he slept, but they were intermittently cut with strange dreams that he scarcely remembered upon waking. When he racked his brain while sewing or brewing a potion, however, he managed to pull together one common theme: a little boy and a wolf, a foggy cemetery, and a lingering feeling of familiarity.

Once more Kurt found himself in the throes of those dreams, and this time the dream followed the little boy out of the cemetery and into the woods close by. He walked alone for a long time until something stood in his way-- It was blurry, but they might have been more wolves, all much bigger and more savage-looking than the first. And unlike before, the boy looked scared this time. They closed in around him, and the last thing Kurt saw before he woke was a blur of motion, and the sight of the wolf from before jumping in front of the little boy, shielding him from the predators.

Kurt woke up feeling confused and very, very thirsty.

He walked out to the well, and found Kitty and Marley doing laundry there. Kitty was doing most of the work; Marley kept trying to catch nearby crickets, and Kurt grimaced as he saw her successfully nab one and shove it in her mouth triumphantly.

"Hello," he said carefully as he approached Kitty. "I was wondering if I might fetch some water?"

Kitty shrugged and let him fill up a bucket to take back to his room. As he pulled up, he saw her shirt dip low on her chest when she reached down to grab a pile of linens. The skin that was revealed was covered in more of the vicious-looking scars that creeped over her neckline, even darker and more numerous, and he couldn't hold back his curiosity any longer.

"Kitty... Might I ask you something?"

She grunted in reply, not looking up at him.

"How did you get those scars?"

That got her attention. She looked up at him sharply, and didn't reply right away. In any other circumstance Kurt might have felt guilty for possibly offending her, but his empathy for the vampyrs was quite limited. Instead, he just stared at her calmly, waiting for an answer.

"We all have them," she said finally, looking carefully over at Marley. She seemed to be treading lightly, but not for Kurt's sake.

"I know," Kurt replied. "I want to know why. At first I thought it might be due to your barbaric idea of entertainment, but they look...methodical. As if they were carved with a knife."

"Shh!" Kitty hissed, her eyes widening. She glanced at Marley again, and relaxed slightly when she saw that the other girl was still obviously munching on crickets.

She glared over at Kurt. "Take your water and leave," she snapped, and returned to her laundry.
Kurt sighed; he knew a lost cause when he saw one. He dutifully took his bucket and walked back toward the inn, glancing back once to see Kitty affectionately toying with Marley's hair.


Before long Kurt was told that they'd be setting off for the city the following day.

The terror that had filled Kurt's heart had lulled to a dull sense of dread, a sick knotted-up ball of twine in his stomach that tightened as each hour went by. He tried to distract himself with sewing, and didn't realize that he'd pricked and calloused his fingers so badly they were starting to hurt severely. Unable to move his fingers properly, he decided to go outside and find some medicinal herbs to heal them. As he walked along the edge of the woods collecting them, he found himself face-to-face with Ryder.

The young man's eyes were no longer covered in bandages, so Kurt could see that his wounds had healed over. He got to his feet, brushing off the grass that had stuck to his tunic, curious.

"Can I help you?" he asked with no small amount of caution. He got the distinct sense that Ryder was unstable, and not the in the sad, sweet way that Marley was; the other boy seemed to thrum with some sort of deep-seated rage, something that itched under his skin and threatened to tear itself out at any moment.

"I wanted to thank you," Ryder mumbled, folding his arms tightly over his bare chest. "Your powers are quite remarkable. None of us have ever seen such a thing before."

"They aren't powers, exactly," Kurt corrected him gently. "But you're welcome."

Ryder was quiet for a moment, fidgeting. When he spoke his voice was low. "Listen. I overheard you speaking with Kitty near the well earlier."

Kurt's eyebrows lifted. "And?"

There was another moment in which Ryder looked like a thing under pressure, something building and stretching and threatening to burst, and Kurt felt the urge to run. He took a step back instinctively, and gasped when he found his wrist caught in a vice-like grip.

"Look at them," Ryder said in a strained voice. "Look at them."

"At what?" Kurt said, startled.

"At the scars," said Ryder desperately. "Can you heal them? Do you think you could make them go away?"

"I-- I don't know," said Kurt fearfully. He swallowed dryly, eyes darting down at Ryder's chest, where the scars looked fresher than ever. A moment of reckless courage came over him, and he looked back up at Ryder's face.

"How did you get them?" he asked, his voice breathless.

Surprisingly, Ryder's grip loosened and eventually his hand fell away. He dragged a hand through his hair, agitated, as Kurt shook the feeling back into his arm.

"I was given them," Ryder murmured. "When I was made."

"When you were..." Kurt stared at him. "You mean when you were changed into a vampyr?"

Ryder nodded. "The process was long," he explained in a trembling voice. "It took all night. A night of unimaginable pain. It is such for all of us."

At first Kurt was desperately confused--but then he remembered his first night after being taken, of the barn, of the table inside. There had been tools there. The vampyrs didn't seem interested in building anything--and many of the tools had been sharp, strange-looking, lethal, and as he racked his brain Kurt could distinctly remember the brown crusting of old blood on their rusted surface--and something dropped into his stomach like a block of ice, melting, spreading.

They hadn't been tools. They had been torture implements.

Things were falling into place around him. Sudden terrifying clarity had fallen over everything--about the scars, about the vampyrs' violent and vengeful nature, Ryder's anger, Marley's madness, Blaine's utter lack of empathy--

"Can you heal them?" Ryder asked again, urgent, breaking his thoughts in half.

Kurt felt vaguely sick. "I do not know," he said softly. "That sort of wound, it's...it's old. It's dark, dark magic I cannot begin to understand--"

"Then try to understand it!" Ryder shouted, his anger rising once more. His hand darted out and reached for Kurt again--

--only to be suddenly and roughly grabbed by Blaine, who had just stepped into Kurt's line of vision seemingly out of nowhere. He was holding a bundle of cloth in one arm, and his eyes looked dangerously calm in the way that the earth did before a torrential storm rocked the sky above it.

"Do not touch him," he told Ryder in a soft voice that made Kurt's hair prickle on the back of his neck. Ryder instantly let go and Blaine stepped back, satisfied.

Kurt didn't linger. He turned away immediately and headed back to the inn, ignoring the sound of footsteps as Blaine followed him. Being tracked unnerved him on a purely cerebral level, and he quickened his pace until he was all but running to the inn. He turned to slam the door behind him, but Blaine caught up with no trouble at all, holding it open with his arm.

Stepping back, Kurt made a frustrated sound. "What do you want?" he mumbled, turning away to walk to his room. His heart was thrumming in a single, buzzing beat in his chest, jolted by a knee-jerk reaction to Blaine chasing him. It was stupid and irrational, Kurt thought, and he despised how Blaine's presence continued to inspire fear and dread in the very core of him.

"I've got something for you," Blaine replied, and tossed Kurt the bundle of cloth.

It was a pair of pants. "How kind of you," Kurt drawled, unimpressed.

"You ought to put those on now," Blaine said, folding his arms and leaning against the nearby wall. "See if they fit properly."

"I will if you turn around," Kurt replied sharply. He was utterly on edge; he'd been deeply disturbed by Ryder's words and his subsequent realization, and Blaine had only made things worse. As usual, Blaine inspired feelings of confusion and frustration and fury in him that no one else could.

"What if I don't want to?"

"I'll hit you again."

"Oh really," said Blaine--and in an instant, he was close to Kurt again. He took Kurt's wrist, and even though his grip was much gentler than Ryder's it felt much more purposeful, much more dangerous.

"Do you really think there isn't anything I wouldn't do to you again, little sparrow?" Blaine said in a low voice.

Icy fear dropped into Kurt's chest, but it wasn't enough to stopper his defiance. He was quiet for a moment, though, which made Blaine think he had won. The vampyr smirked and turned away, but the conversation wasn't done.

"But you haven't," Kurt said clearly, suddenly.

Blaine frowned and turned. "What did you say?"

"You haven't," Kurt continued, his heartbeat picking up again. "You've had many opportunities, but you haven't. And you never explained to me why you gave me this room, and the food, and the tea, and the clothes... It's almost as if you--"

"As if I what?"

Kurt's jaw tightened. "As if you were experiencing remorse."

To his surprise, Blaine didn't respond right away. He clenched his teeth and finally stepped back, turning to face the fire. Kurt had a view of his back then, and could see the scars starting at the top of his neck and disappearing down the back of his shirt.

Blaine was tortured too, he thought suddenly, and felt sick.

"Are you going to get dressed?" Blaine asked gruffly, startling him. Kurt stared for a moment before hastily tugging on the pair of pants and adjusting his tunic over them. They were a little short, but they fit just fine.

"They'll do," he said tersely. "Thank you. You can turn back around now."

There was another long moment of silence. Blaine didn't turn right away, and instead poked at the fire, causing its flames to flare up and surround his silhouette. Kurt stood uncomfortably, wrapping his arms around his chest, unwilling to yield just yet to this unpredictable, impossible man.

"I have forgotten," Blaine said at last. "The feeling of remorse. I have forgotten many things."

The words sounded familiar. 'Blaine hasn't been human in a long time,' Kitty had said, hadn't she? He has forgotten what it's like.

"Blaine," said Kurt boldly, referring to the vampyr by his name for the first time. The sound of it startled Blaine enough to turn his head at last, to look at Kurt with eyes that seemed much bigger than usual, wide and deceptively innocent.

"When did you become a vampyr?" Kurt continued. "When did you get those scars?"

There was another long, taut moment of silence in which Kurt could hear his own heartbeat flutter and twitch, and then Blaine replied, "Two hundred years ago."

Kurt gasped audibly. It was difficult to believe that the young-looking man standing before him was older than his father, than Shady Hollow's eldest citizens, than Shady Hollow itself. It should have been impossible--but Kurt was well acquainted with things beyond the scope of humanity, things from other worlds. It was just that his world had been very small before, and now it was sprawling in front of him like a gaping maw, impossible to escape.

"Who was it?" Kurt asked then in an urgent whisper, unable to stop himself. "Who did that to you?"

He knew he'd been pushing it, but he was disappointed nonetheless when Blaine did not reply, and instead turned away to walk toward the door.

"We leave at dawn," he said brusquely. "You can bring some of your medicines with you, but keep your load light. We'll be walking all day."

Kurt deflated somewhat, then nodded. Blaine left again, and Kurt felt like he'd barely scratched the surface of a complex whole, a tiny chip off an ageless monolith much too big for him. If anything, he felt as though his own healing process depended on the salvaging of that monolith, on grappling for a semblance of humanity in his captors--in Blaine in particular.

Blaine may have forgotten his humanity, but at that moment Kurt decided he was hell-bent on making him remember.

--

They left for the city at dawn, and walked.

For hours.

Kurt's fear had crawled out of the hole where it had slept, keeping him alert even as his body ached from head to toe. The world they were crossing was utterly unfamiliar to him, and he was so far now from his little village that he could feel tethers snapping behind him. He forced himself to look ahead as he followed the rest of the vampyrs through thick woods and sprawling fields, forced himself to push all thoughts of his father and Adam and Rachel out of his mind.

The vampyrs moved quickly, and it was difficult to keep up the pace. Kurt stumbled often, and was subsequently yanked back onto his feet each time, forced to keep moving. By the time sunset approached he was on the verge of collapse, but he knew he couldn't lie down to sleep anywhere near the vampyrs with the inevitable approach of nightfall.

Kitty seemed to sense his anxiety, and walked near him as the other vampyrs settled around the clearing to rest. She handed him a cup of water and an apple, which he snatched away from her far too greedily. He didn't care it it was rude; he was far too exhausted and hungry to worry about manners.

Kitty lingered nearby while he ate, and as soon as he felt some strength return he looked up at her anxiously.

"What am I to do?" he said softly. "When night falls--"

"We are under strict orders not to harm you," Kitty replied. "You are to sleep down near the creek, out of our sight. It isn't as though you can escape; we are miles from civilization. And you know he will find you."

"I know," said Kurt, and a shiver raced down his spine. "It is him who I am most afraid of."

Kitty didn't reply, and turned away to head back to where the other vampyrs were getting a fire going. Dressed in their red robes, they all looked like members of some religious order, indistinguishable and unsettlingly uniform. Kurt curled up against a fallen tree, cold and miserable, until the sun sank lower down the horizon and he knew he had to make himself scarce.

As he wandered down the slight hill toward the creek, he briefly considered taking off in the opposite direction, running as fast as he could away from the vampyrs, away from whatever fate they had in store for him. It was foolish, though, to even entertain the notion; there was nothing but miles of dead forest all around them, and no matter how far he got he knew that Blaine would find him.

Just as the wolf found the little boy in his dreams.

He found a mossy spot near the creek and gathered leaves around it for extra cushioning, fashioning himself a makeshift bed. Kurt loved nature, but this forest didn't seem nearly as welcoming as the forest near the Hollow had. Instead of bright green grass and thick trees with sprawling arms that closed around him, there were shattered black trunks and twisted vines and lurid-looking fungus clustered all over the creek bed. It was cold, unwelcoming, and didn't inspire magic in Kurt's heart at all. Instead, he felt as though he were treading dangerous ground, a forbidden place his mother would never let him venture into.

There was dark magic here.

He curled up on the ground and closed his eyes, envisioning sweet-smelling grass and lightly falling dandelion seeds, of the sound of crickets and frogs instead of cold, howling emptiness. His exhaustion was enough to drag him into sleep, and he slept fitfully, with only his thoughts to keep him warm.

A few hours later--or minutes, he couldn't be sure--he was forced awake by the sound of footsteps. The person approaching him was making no effort to be quiet or stealthy, and Kurt could hear twigs snapping and leaves rusting and, distantly, the sound of muted growling.

He scrambled to his feet, plunging into fear. Memories of the barn floor flooded back to him, and he was overcome with dread-- It was Blaine, it had to be Blaine, he was coming back to do it again and why had he thought he could trust him not to, why had he provoked him again, what insanity had come over him to even entertain the notion--

The growling got louder and the approacher came into his line of vision, and Kurt was startled to see that it wasn't Blaine at all.

It was Ryder.

Kurt barely had time to react before the vampyr was on him, grabbing his arm and wrenching him roughly down to the ground. He struggled to find purchase and push himself up, but the much larger boy was able to pin him down effortlessly, looking down at him with eyes that burned with the same predatory heat that Blaine's had on that fateful night.

"Help," said Kurt suddenly, his voice cracking. The word had been far too small, shrunken with fear, and he tried again. "Help--"

"Shut up," Ryder spat, and roughly tore his fingernails--his claws--across Kurt's face. Kurt screamed with pain and tried to roll to his side, desperate to get away, relying on pure instinct.

Ryder grabbed him by the collar, yanking him back, choking him, and then he was on top of Kurt again. Where Blaine had attacked methodically, purposefully, Ryder was all brute force and rabid, unchecked fury. His claws cut deeply into Kurt's skin as he scratched blindly and insanely, aiming for nothing other than to make Kurt bleed as much as possible.

"You can heal me," Ryder was crying out, and his voice was wretched, wounded. "Do it-- Do it or I'll cover you in scars, I'll make you hideous, you little cunt--"

"I can't--" Kurt screamed as Ryder's fingers tightened in his hair and pulled. "Oh god-- Oh god, stop!"

He couldn't get away. Something snapped in Ryder and he lost all reason, letting out a guttural howl before diving forward and sinking his teeth into Kurt's neck.

Kurt screamed. The pain was, of course, unimaginable--but different than the sensations he felt when Blaine bit him. It was deep, sharp, brutal pain, and he squirmed on the ground in a pitiful attempt to get away as Ryder drank from him greedily.

He'd been bitten before, and it had always ended in blacking out, in falling away and waking up somewhere else entirely. This time, it ended much differently.

Ryder's teeth were pulled from his throat abruptly with a sick popping sound, and he let out a moan of pain as his head fell back on the dusty, hard ground. In his blurred vision he could see two shapes entangled in front of him-- Ryder, flailing violently, struggling as someone yanked him off of Kurt and threw him brutally to the ground.

Kurt's vision was blurry, but he knew who had come to his rescue without even needing it. He could see Blaine forcing Ryder's head down as if he were admonishing a dog, fingers pressing into the muscles at the back of Ryder's neck.

"Stay away from him." he growled. "Or I'll break your neck."

The sound of Blaine's feral voice--so much lower, so much more deadly, and so horribly familiar--filled Kurt's heart with dread. He curled up on his side, clutching the wound in his neck and watching helplessly as the two vampyrs clashed in front of him. Ryder had yanked free of Blaine's hold and was thrashing at him, and it was just like the fights Kurt had witnessed back at the village--all gnashing teeth and ripping claws, flesh against flesh, skin and bone and sinew, saliva and blood. Kurt had no idea who was faring better in the fight; he squeezed his eyes shut, just clutching his wound, trying to lose himself somewhere in his mind, somewhere safe.

Finally it ended. Kurt opened his eyes to see Blaine crouching above Ryder's motionless body, and his stomach twisted-- Did he kill him?

The question died as fear swamped Kurt's mind. Blaine was here, right there beside him, it was nighttime, and Blaine was feral.

He knew what that meant.

Suddenly very alert, he slid backward and groped around for something he could use as a weapon. There was nothing around him but a tangle of sticks and a few rocks, and he seized one from the creek bed and threw it in Blaine's direction as the vampyr turned and started to crawl toward him.

"Stay back!" he cried. His entire body ached, covered in bruises and deep scratches that were oozing blood, and he felt himself grow cold as he lost more and more of it--but he kept flinging rocks as he found them, desperately trying to avoid reliving the trauma that still bled like a fresh wound in his mind.

Blaine kept crawling, closer and closer, and Kurt let out a sob as the inevitable became clear. He lifted his arm to throw another rock, but Blaine grabbed it and forced it back to the ground.

'Do you really think there isn't anything I wouldn't do to you again, little sparrow?'

"Don't," Kurt whimpered as those red-yellow eyes came into view, so familiar. "Blaine. Please."
Blaine's expression was unreadable. He looked down at Kurt as if checking him over, leaning close to sniff at him. His nose nuzzled against Kurt's throat, and Kurt shivered.

"Remember," Kurt whispered, at once still and shaking like a trapped animal, desperately grappling for freedom. "Remember, Blaine... Please..."

He gasped as something wet and warm trailed over the wound on his neck. It took him a moment to realize that it was Blaine's tongue, licking at the wound Ryder had left there, and for a moment he felt like vomiting. He had no idea what Blaine was doing, but he couldn't help but notice the change in his demeanor.

Instead of holding Kurt down, taunting him, treating him like a piece of meat--he was almost gentle, lapping at Kurt's wound as if to soothe it. Just like when they'd first met in the barn, Kurt felt a surge of familiarity, as if he'd met Blaine before long ago.

He grew faint as he lost more blood. Blaine pulled away and straightened up, and his eyes seemed different--bigger, darker, pupils blown. Kurt was still for as long as he could manage it, but he knew that if he lost more blood he'd most certainly pass out.

Slowly he pulled himself up and dragged his battered, aching body toward the side of the creek. Some witch hazel was growing there, and he used all the strength he could muster to tear off a few leaves and press them against the deepest cut on his arm. He leaned back against a tree trunk, breathing in slowly and deeply as he summoned what little magic he could in the dark, desolate woods that surrounded him.

Blaine sat nearby, staring. Kurt felt some of the wounds begin to crust and heal over, the skin binding together slowly and scabbing over beneath the leaves. Once the meager spell was done he let the leaves fall to the ground and he breathed deeply, exhausted but blessedly relieved of much of the pain.

Leaves crunched as Blaine once again made his way toward him. Kurt tensed up involuntarily, and gasped as Blaine ducked his head down and started licking at more wounds on his leg. Utterly confused and utterly exhausted, Kurt just watched Blaine's bizarre actions with an air of resignation.

"If you do it again," Kurt whispered, stone-faced and dour. "I might break."

Blaine said nothing. His tongue slid over the wounds and then over the smooth flesh of Kurt's thigh, and Kurt shivered. Something very unlike fear--something the very opposite of it--was prickling through him, making him suck in a shuddering breath.

"Blaine..."

He squirmed. The sensation was blotting out the pain, startling him, confusing him. It wasn't unlike the way he'd felt when Adam smiled at him, or--or when he kissed him, touched him--but this was Blaine. This was the cruel monster who had taken everything away from him, had violated his body and his soul, had stripped away in one night his self-constructed, safe little world.

This wasn't right. It was sick.

Yet there he was, letting it happen, letting Blaine slide his hands over his legs and up his thighs, to the hem of his pants. His fingers curled around it and Kurt felt him hesitate, as if the beast in him had any room for contemplation, for common sense. Then Blaine was sliding the pants down and off, revealing Kurt's bruised and battered legs.

"Blaine," Kurt said again, as if in warning. His fingers curled around another rock, tightening hard, prepared to lift it and smash it over Blaine's head as hard as he could-- But then the tongue returned, licking up the gash Ryder had left on Kurt's thigh, and his entire body shuddered.

His body melted against the tree trunk, listless and pliant and suddenly without fear. Slowly his fingers released the rock he'd been holding, and his mouth fell open as Blaine's tongue moved up his thigh, closer and closer and God so close and his thighs were spreading and what was he doing, why--

It was like Kurt was suspended in a dream, unable to move and surrendering to experience. Blaine's head was now firmly positioned between his thighs, mouth moving over the sensitive flesh there, mouthing and kissing and licking hungrily, and Kurt let out a loud groan. It was nothing like it had been in the barn-- Then he had been terrified for his life, fighting against something horrifying and impossible to comprehend, forced brutally into a world he'd never explored before. Now that world was blunt and stark and right before him, and he didn't fear it anymore. He'd survived the worst of it, and the vulnerable parts of him had scabbed over, and the nightmare was dancing in the palm of his hand.

Right now, Blaine was his.

The hand that had been gripping the rock instead fell down to claw at the soil near the creek bed, scratching at it as pleasure pumped relentlessly through his body. Blaine didn't display much technique or finesse, wild and feral as he lapped at Kurt like an animal, devouring him. Every time Blaine's tongue dragged over his clit Kurt let out a sharp gasp, startled by the intense pleasure, the sensitivity of the parts that he'd never explored on his own before. Then that tongue pushed inside of him, breaching him, and he thought he might die with the burn of it, the filth of it, the way the pleasure weaved with the pain of his wounds and stung him.

Blaine's tongue thrust inside of him wildly and lapped at his clit in turn, and Kurt couldn't bear it anymore. His head fell back against the tree trunk and he cried out as pleasure curled through his body, starting in his belly and spreading in between his legs like something winding and springing free. His first orgasm ripped through his body without warning, seizing him and turning him inside out, and he spasmed and jerked and moaned until his body wilted, spent, against the tree trunk.

Slowly Blaine pulled away, looking at him with mild interest as he sagged against the tree's roots, sated and confused and completely overwhelmed. If his mind was still battling the morality of it all, it was doing so very quietly, and all he could think about was sleeping.

Thankfully Blaine seemed to have the same idea. He edged away, then curled up on the ground close to Kurt's feet. Ryder's unconscious form was only yards away, but Blaine didn't seem to have much regard for it. He closed his eyes, and Kurt felt like that little boy in the red hood again--only this time, he was a little older, a little wiser, and he had tamed the wolf. For now.

He slept.

--