He bought an apartment in Lima—Tina and Mike moved shortly after graduation—and saw Blaine every day, no matter what. Blaine stayed over almost every night and Kurt got jobs whenever he could. His ID—which was actually pretty real since he had multiple birth certificates for different years so that he could pass himself off as a few years younger or older—got him a regular job as a bartender at some country club in Westerville. He made hundreds of dollars a night and worked private parties when he was desperate for cash.

So their life wasn’t bad. But some things were hard to work around.

Blaine’s parents got more and more distant as time went on. They cared less about where he was and what he was doing. As long nobody knew that Blaine was gay and their reputations weren’t sullied, they didn’t care. The longest he’d managed to stay out was four days and nights before Kurt made him go home. And it kind of sucked. But it was, at the same time, incredibly reassuring. He didn’t want to leave behind loving parents when he changed. It would have been too much of a heartache to deal with.

Kurt fed off of other people. He hated it, hated lying to Blaine, but he had to eat more often than the occasional drink from Blaine that he human could handle. Never the same person, always at least three or four people a month—he needed to stay strong and full. He wouldn’t be able to control himself around Blaine if he didn’t. He still took blood from Blaine—at the human’s insistence—and could pretend, easily, that it was enough. Because he wasn’t going to risk Blaine’s life like that. Never.

There were a million different things that they had to do before they left for New York. They’d agreed upon that. New York. Kurt was going to go a design school for fun, work backstage for as many productions as he could, and spend the money he’d saved over his centuries of lifetime to make sure Blaine had everything he could ever want. Blaine was going to go to school—Julliard or NYU or wherever, really—and live with Kurt and get a job and be happy. That was their plan overall. Happiness.

Blaine had the summer to adjust to his new life before school started. That was the part that worried Kurt. It had taken him months to get to the point where he didn’t kill on sight. And for a while after that, it was sketchy. Blaine couldn’t risk missing school. Not with the things he wanted to get done there. Not with the plans he had.

But Kurt hadn’t had anyone when he’d been changed. Blaine would have him. They would make it work.

-0-

“Are you hungry?”

The question was so casual that Kurt didn’t bother to look up from his laptop before he answered. “No.”

Blaine, who was probably still splayed out across the bed behind him, was silent.

Kurt shifted in his desk chair but didn’t turn around, continuing his search. “Did you write your essay for Worthington yet?”

“Finished it while you were napping.”

“Mmm…”

Another moment of silence passed before the sound of ruffling of blankets hit him and he knew that Blaine was getting out of bed. He waited, just listening, not even pretending that he was still typing. His hands were still.

The snap of elastic hitting skin.

Blaine was getting dressed.

Immediately, Kurt spun around, frowning. “Are you leaving?”

Blaine shrugged, his eyes on the floor as he hunted for his clothes. “Do you want me to?”

“No! I—of course not. I thought you said you could stay.”

“I can. I always can.”

“So…” Kurt’s voice died in his throat as he watched his boyfriend slip on his jeans. “Will you stay? Please?”

Blaine didn’t speak. His undershirt was next—simple, white, and cotton, but it hugged his biceps and clung to him perfectly—before his blood-red dress shirt. He was done with two buttons before he started speaking. “I’m gonna go out and get food.”

“I have food here.”

“Kurt.”

His tone was warning. Hard. For the first time in the last half hour, he met Kurt’s eyes evenly, unwavering. He sounded threatening. And Kurt knew why.

The guilt had been eating at him since the first one. She was young and pretty and very, very strong. She was a runner. Blonde, healthy, O negative. Delicious. There were others. Always others. Because he needed blood—needed it desperately, ached for it—and he wasn’t going to risk feeding from Blaine when he was so hungry all he saw was red.

He quenched his thirst a little bit first. When it got to be too much he’d drink from someone else just enough, just barely, before heading home and tackling Blaine to the ground, sinking his fangs into Blaine’s pretty little neck, and touching him so that he’d come his brains out right when Kurt was done. It worked pretty well.

Except that Kurt hadn’t taken anything from Blaine in a month.

And Blaine had to be suspicious.

“I need to tell you something,” Kurt said softly. It wasn’t fair of him to keep it from Blaine. It just…wasn’t. Besides, he didn’t think he could live with the guilt anymore. “I…” Blaine was watching him steadily. Waiting. Expectant. “I haven’t been completely honest.”

“Oh?” His voice was dry and annoyed. “You don’t say.”

“It’s just that—wait.” Frowning, Kurt replayed Blaine’s response in his head. “You… You knew?”

“Of course I knew, Kurt,” Blaine sighed. His angry expression fell away to exhaustion and he sat back down on the bed, beginning to take off his clothes again. “But I… I realized that my jealousy was kind of getting in the way of things so I went and talked to Mike. And he said that when he was human, Tina never fed off of him but it didn’t matter because food has nothing to do with love.”

“Blaine—”

“So it doesn’t matter to me. You need to eat. We’re a couple, we need to compromise. This is a compromise I’m willing to concede. I just… I want you to be honest with me.” Kurt nodded numbly and Blaine smiled. Naked from the waist up, he opened his arms. “C’mere.”

Kurt went to him immediately, straddling him and winding his arms around Blaine’s shoulders. “I love you, you know that?”

“I know. And I love you.”

-0-

Two weeks later, they were cuddled up in their bed at Kurt’s place—Blaine always called it that, called it theirs—when Blaine asked the question.

“When are we going to do it?”

Kurt kissed the top of Blaine’s head absently, whispering, “As soon as you graduate. The day after, if you want.”

“How… How long will we have to wait? Before I’m…healthy?”

Blaine really wanted to know how long they’d have to wait before he could control himself. “It varies. For some people it’s months, for others it’s weeks. I was lucky. My first few days I was kept underground. I couldn’t get to anybody. I almost died, actually, because I was so hungry.” Blaine made a noise of protest again Kurt’s chest but he shushed him, sliding his fingers through the curls atop his head. “I don’t even remember how many people I killed those first few months. Someone was following me, cleaning up after me. Probably the man who changed me. But I never saw him. I’m almost sad that I didn’t. I think I would’ve liked killing him.”

“But if he hadn’t done what he did,” Blaine said hurriedly, “we never would have met. You’d be gone.”

Kurt blinked up at the dark ceiling. “Yeah. I would be.”

“Tina gave me her books. So that I could prepare myself for what’s going to happen.”

“And?”

“And… I know what we have to do. I’m ready for it. I think I want to be in New York when it happens though. I don’t want to hurt anybody on the plane ride over and I… I want my life to start there.”

Not his new life. Not his life with Kurt. Not his college life. Not his life without his parents or his family. But his life. The condition that distinguishes organisms. The condition manifested by growth, reproduction, and the power of adaptations… The distinguishing phenomena of organisms, the complete and utter existence of an individual—Blaine’s life hadn’t really started yet. He’d been floating around, purposeless, empty. Until Kurt. He was ready for his life to start though. With Kurt.

“One book said… It said that in rare cases the human could… Well it said that after he undergoes the necessary steps and the waiting period begins he could just…never wake up.”

Kurt’s eyes closed. Scooting down the bed, he gathered Blaine more completely into his arms and kissed him. “That won’t happen to you,” he whispered. “I promise. But if you’re worried, if you don’t want to go through with it—”

“I still want to,” Blaine said immediately. There was no fear in his voice then. “We have to try. We have to take the risk.”

“No we don’t, Blaine. We don’t.”

“Kurt, the only reason I brought it up was because… If that happens—”

“It won’t,” Kurt insisted emphatically, hand pressing tightly into Blaine’s lower back. “It won’t. You listen to me right now, Blaine Anderson. That will not happen. So please, please stop talking about it. Please.”

There was only slight hesitation before Blaine nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

“You know what to expect in theory. But the reality is different. It’ll be more intense than you think. The things about being bloodthirsty, about wanting blood wherever you can get it—they’re not lying. I can get into a hospital, get bags upon bags of blood for when you wake up but it won’t be enough for you. Not like live blood. Not like blood hot and pulsing under skin and in veins—you’ll be a monster, Blaine.” The boy shuddered in his arms. “Do you understand me? For the first forty-eight hours of your new life, you won’t have any friends. You know that.”

Blaine nodded again. “Yes. I do.”

“What else did you find out in the books?”

Blaine knew what Kurt was asking but he didn’t think he could say it. It was something he didn’t want to consider, could never consider. It wasn’t right.

“Blaine. I can order you to tell me.”

He pressed his lips together tight.

“The big red book with the gold binding. Third chapter, the one that talked about what would happen after the change. What did it say, Blaine?”

Shuddering, he pressed his face into Kurt’s neck. “It said that new vampires are prone to killing their makers if they’re confused or feel threatened.”

“And what do you think about that?”

“I could never hurt you, Kurt. Ever.”

“That feeling that you just got in your chest, the tight squeezing, the sensation that your whole chest was about to cave in…” Kurt sighed heavily. “I get that every time you look at me. We’re both going to be fine, Blaine. We’re going to take care of each other. We would never do anything to put each other in harm’s way. We’ll be fine.”

Blaine brushed his lips over Kurt’s collarbone. “I believe you.”

“Good. Now let’s get some sleep. I have to stay up until three AM tomorrow, mixing alcohol for rich people.”

“What a tough life you live, Kurt.”

“Don’t I know it.”

-0-

It happened four days after graduation.

Blaine spent the first day saying goodbye to his family and his friends. The second, they left for New York. And the day after that, they spent as much time as they could in bed, having sex until they passed out and then going at it again once they woke up.

It was exciting. It was fun. It was what Blaine had been really looking forward to.

When he woke up the next morning, Kurt had placed dozens on towels on the bedroom floor, extra sheets, folded perfectly, on the empty dresser, and was pacing the room, staring at the floor.

Blaine’s voice was trapped in his throat but it didn’t matter anyway because Kurt spoke before he could.

“You can still back out.”

He simply shook his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

“It’s going to suck. A lot.”

Sitting up completely, he cleared his throat. His voice was still gravelly when he said, “I know.”

“Once I start, there’s no stopping. If you’re going to change your mind, you have to do it now.”

But Blaine didn’t change his mind.

Later, all he remembered was blood. Pain, sharp, white-hot pain, and blood, hot and wet and throbbing under his skin before that skin was broken and it was dripping…everywhere. And then Kurt’s blood. In his mouth, in him, in his veins—he had Kurt’s blood. He was connected to Kurt in every way possible. They shared everything.

But that wasn’t what he thought about when he woke up. When he woke up—which was a terrifyingly new experience, like being born again, like resurfacing after holding your breath for too long—all he could think about was the aching in his throat and his stomach. His gums throbbed, his body felt powerful beyond belief, and his only thought was blood, blood, blood, blood.

He could smell it. Stale but warm. It was just through a wall.

Before he knew it, he was in front of it. A giant pool of sticky red stuff, warm from the microwave, and Blaine didn’t think, just acted. Slurped it directly from the bowl and could feel it sloshing in his stomach. It wasn’t exactly what he wanted—he wanted hot and pulsing with life—but it was good, good enough because he was so, so hungry—

“Slow down,” a voice said. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

He jumped back, the empty bowl clattering to the floor.

Kurt.

Pale, slender, beautiful as always. But there was something different. He looked…tired. Worried. Scared.

Blaine went into defense mode, snarling without meaning to. What was it that was scaring Kurt? He’d kill it. Immediately.

Kurt held up his hands. “Blaine.”

Kurt’s eyes were wide, his clothes simple and wrinkled, hair unkempt. He hadn’t been taking care of himself. How long had Blaine been asleep? What had gone on in the world around him while he’d been out? What was it that was making Kurt like this, making him seem so weak?

Realization hit him like a freight train. Kurt was scared…of him.

His first thought was Why?

And then he looked down at the blood on his hands, the plastic bowl on the floor and the others on the counter, awaiting him. He was still hungry, still desperate. He ran his tongue over his teeth.

Fangs.

“I won’t hurt you,” Blaine said immediately. Even his voice sounded new. It was a new sensation, speaking. Everything felt different. “I—I’m sorry—I’m just so hungry—”

“That’s okay,” Kurt said. “Eat.”

“Can we… Kurt, can we get fresh blood?” He stared up at Kurt desperately. “Please?”

Kurt blinked. “Soon. When you’re stronger.”

“I’ll never be stronger than I am now.”

“When you can control yourself more,” he clarified. “Eat.”

Blaine ate.

-0-

It was remarkable. Blaine had to have been the only vampire in hundreds of years that took to the life so quickly. He was fine—completely and totally healthy and strong with willpower to boot—at the end of the week. Five days after he was changed, he was walking down the street with Kurt to take in the city that never slept, hands swinging between them carelessly, with hundreds of people around, not even blinking an eye.

He was…perfect. He was carefree and giggly and prone to random bursts of excitement that often led to him kissing Kurt so enthusiastically that they got glared at by random passersby. Their sex life was even more phenomenal that it had been back in Ohio. Kurt no longer had to worry about breaking him.

“I’m hungry,” Blaine whispered into his boyfriend’s neck. “Why’d I let you convince me to stay in and have sex?”

“Because I’m hot and you’re horny.” Kurt kissed Blaine quickly before he vanished—Blaine’s favorite part about being a vampire was the speed—and reappeared facing his closet. “Let’s go out and eat.”

“No hospital blood? Real, live blood?”

Kurt smiled to himself as he picked out an outfit. “Real, live blood.”

“You’re the best, Kurt. Best boyfriend ever.” He was suddenly behind Kurt, arms around his waist, kissing across his shoulders. They stood like that for a while, soaking each other in just because they could, before Blaine muttered, “Kurt, do you wanna marry me?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

Blaine grinned against Kurt’s skin. “Let’s eat before we plan the wedding, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They stepped into the warm summer night with their hands clasped. And as Blaine took in the city around them, saw things he’d never seen before, smelled things he’d never smelled before, breathed new air and absorbed new feelings, he knew he had never been happier in his life. He was with Kurt. Forever.

No matter what.