Now

--

It was a rainy day. Then again, it always rained. But somehow the rain was more poignant today, like it was reflecting what was felt by the one man standing just on the outskirts of the forest.

He wore a dirty green cloak to try and blend into the forest ground as much as he could but he wasn’t looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was spying on him. His eyes were fixed on the crude gravestone marking the resting place for the man that he loved.

In his hand, he held a bunch of flowers handpicked from his garden. He’d tied them together with a blue ribbon and was picking at a stray thread at the fraying end while he stood in silence.

He wasn’t supposed to be there. His lover had been buried here, on unconsecrated ground, because he wasn’t supposed to be visited. His family were the only other regular visitors but their visits were at least expected.

With a heavy sigh, the man knelt on the muddy grass and placed a hand on the grave. The headstone was made of wood and his lover’s name was delicately carved in flowing calligraphy. But the weather was making short work of the flimsy headstone. He wanted nothing more than to give his lover a stone headstone but it was not permitted. Not from him, anyway.

The rain beat down and rolled off the oiled cloak, expensive but well-worn because it had been bought for this exact reason. His hair was soaked and water rolled down the man’s face from his locks in lines and mingled with the tears that had just begun to fall. He traced the name with his fingertips as if trying to reach out to his lover in the afterlife.

Did he know he was visited almost every day? Did he know who sat at the graveside and wept for the loss of the love of his life?

Was he watching right now?

--

Then

--

“I need a blacksmith!”

Blaine Anderson, second son of the Earl of Dalton in the south west of England, led his horse into the small fenced area that separated the forge from the rest of the street. He’d nearly been thrown from his horse when Pavarotti had thrown a shoe and Blaine had walked through the muddy ground and heaving crowds to enter the blacksmith’s forge in the centre of town.

He didn’t frequent this side of the town often. His father’s manor house was a fair ride from the town but on the opposite side and there was a blacksmith living and working within the walls of the keep. But Blaine could hardly ride home with his horse having one hoof unshod.

He felt a tug on the reins and the leather slipped through his grip like it was ribbon. Blaine turned to watch Pavarotti turn his head this way and that as if taking in the new blacksmith’s forge and assessing it.

“Does this work for you?” He even asked the horse. Not that he expected the horse to answer back. Pavarotti did snort and bring his head closer to Blaine once more, presenting the opportunity for Blaine to run his free hand over his horse’s neck.

“I need a blacksmith!” He called again. The entrance to the forge was open, as always, but the house just to the side of it seemed to be locked up tight. If the fire hadn’t been burning ferociously, Blaine would have guessed the smiths weren’t at home.

He walked nearer the forge to peer round the side of the stone building. Maybe someone was behind there, towards the forest that surrounded the town on one side. There was plenty of firewood stacked near the fireplace but perhaps kindling was needed.

Blaine felt Pavarotti walk closer and he nudged the back of Blaine’s shoulder with his nose. Without tearing his eyes from where they were desperately scanning the forest, Blaine reached back and patted Pavarotti’s nose in what he hoped was a comforting way.

“Oh.”

A voice rang out from the hustle and bustle of the market only a few streets away. Blaine turned around to find the speaker. He had to walk around Pavarotti’s shoulders to do so and barely held back a gasp when he saw the boy who had spoken.

His voice was light and high and could only be described as musical. His appearance suited that: tall with a lithe figure; light brown locks swept off his forehead, no doubt from running his hands through it constantly; blue eyes that sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. He didn’t look old enough to be the blacksmith; he looked barely a year older than Blaine. But he wore a blacksmith’s apron and carried a basket of dried kindling in one hand.

“Were you looking for the smith?” He asked, his musical voice catching Blaine off guard, breaking him out of the stupor he’d fallen into while taking in the boy’s appearance.

He blinked three times and swallowed once before remembering how to speak. “Yes, I am. Are you the blacksmith?”

“No, that’ll be my father.” The boy, the smith’s apprentice, walked inside the fence and closed the gate to the forge. He walked around Pavarotti to stand closer to Blaine, wicker basket still swinging by his side. “Can I be of assistance?”

Blaine nodded and pointed to Pavarotti’s front left hoof. “My horse has thrown a shoe.” That was all the explanation needed and the apprentice nodded, indicating that he could help.

Blaine watched as the boy walked into the forge to place the basket near the open wood fire. He took a brief moment to gather the tools he needed and then retied his thick leather apron. He lifted the nippers off the pile of tools, indicating that Blaine should walk his horse closer to the forge. Once Blaine had gotten Pavarotti as close to the open fire as he would go, the apprentice joined them.

“May I?” He asked, gesturing towards Pavarotti’s front leg.

Blaine moved to the right side of his horse and patted Pavarotti’s neck in comfort. He watched the apprentice work, trimming the unwanted hoof wall then tackling the sole. He worked meticulously, not looking away from his work and making sure that the hoof was filed to perfection before carefully placing Pavarotti’s hoof back on the bare ground and walking back into his forge to find a horseshoe.

“You are the Earl’s son, aren’t you?” He asked as he crouched down once more, horseshoe in hand, to measure it against the hoof.

“Yes, I am.” Blaine watched the other boy to see his reaction. Usually a commoner from the town would stare unabashed for a moment before fawning over the son of their liege lord. As if Blaine had any control over his father or over who was born to which family. What was a pleasant surprise is that the boy acted as if Blaine was just another customer: as if confirming who Blaine was simply joined the dots in his mind.

As the apprentice measured the shoe against Pavarotti’s hoof, Blaine studied him more closely. For a blacksmith, he had remarkably fair skin that was hardly burnt and not at all covered with soot like the blacksmith back at the manor house was. His hair, which Blaine had assumed was standing off his face from the boy running his hands through it, seemed to be styled that way and held with a concoction to keep it in place. But it was swept up from his face in such a way that his profile was framed.

Blaine’s eyes traced down the boy’s face to his nose, which curved slightly at the end, and to his lips, which were pursed in concentration as he bent the shoe to fit the hoof. His fingers were long and thin and Blaine watched them dance over the hoof and the horseshoe as he worked tirelessly.

Blaine only tore his eyes from the boy when he stood and walked to the fire to plunge the horseshoe deep into the heat. The fire crackled and spluttered around the new metal, the tangy scent of iron filling the air as the horseshoe slowly heated up.

“I don’t know your name.” Blaine asked. He moved closer to the forge, his arm still holding the reigns and stretched back to where Pavarotti hadn’t moved. If he was honest with himself, Blaine wanted to be as close to the boy as possible. The blacksmith’s apprentice intrigued him, with his blue eyes, pale skin and melodic voice.

The apprentice only answered once he’d turned away from the fire and laid the red hot horseshoe on the anvil. He looked at Blaine, his very blue eyes sparkling in the darkness of the forge. “I’m Kurt Hummel,” he said, “My father, the blacksmith, is Burt Hummel.”

Kurt struck the horseshoe with the hammer and began to shape it to fit Pavarotti’s hoof. He was licking his lips as he concentrated, making them glisten in the firelight. His intense look of concentration as he worked had silenced Blaine. He wanted to know more. For one, Hummel wasn’t an English name which meant Kurt’s family had been foreigners: perhaps they had been from a duchy in the Holy Roman Empire. But something about Kurt, the way he carried himself and how he looked with the fire lighting him from behind, made Blaine want to know all about him.

“Hummel isn’t an English name.” He commented as Kurt measured the hot shoe against Pavarotti’s hoof. He meant it only as a curiosity but Kurt stood up and moved a little away from Blaine, almost in fear.

“I am English, my lord,” he said quickly. His voice held no fear but his blue eyes were wide with alarm.

Foreigners were not welcomed with open arms in many places in the country, often blamed for misdoings when there was no one else to blame. Blaine hadn’t experienced it nor taken part in it: the noble class was filled with foreigners who were married to the men of England, but perhaps Kurt had been subject to the hate and confused curiosity of prejudice.

He held out a hand, palm open and raised towards the heavens, in apology. “I meant no offense.” He looked Kurt directly in the eyes, trying to let him know that that was the truth, “Only childish curiosity.” The last thing he wanted to do was insult this boy.

Kurt took a moment where he stared into Blaine’s eyes as if trying to read them for a lie. When he was satisfied that Blaine hadn’t been trying to insult him, he moved back into the forge to heat the horseshoe and continue shaping it to fit the hoof.

It took a moment of silence where Blaine busied himself by stroking Pavarotti’s mane before Kurt answered the question. It shocked Blaine: he hadn’t been expecting Kurt to answer after the way he reacted to the question.

“My grandfather moved here from D�sseldorf when the Lady Anne of Cleves was still married to King Henry.” Kurt was saying. He still worked tirelessly to bend the horseshoe to the perfect shape, hammer tapping against the iron to make a tune for their conversation. “But my grandmother was English and my father was born here as well.”

Kurt moved closer to check the fit of the horseshoe once more. Blaine watched his long fingers delicately lift Pavarotti’s leg and Kurt even rubbed his thumb over the leg as he held the hot iron to the hoof, as if to soothe Pavarotti from the pain of the heat.

“Have you ever visited your grandfather’s family?” Blaine asked, curiosity getting the better of him once more. Blaine’s mother was the daughter of a Spanish family but he had never left England to visit them. He’d never met anyone who had left England.

Kurt returned to the anvil for a third time and took up his hammer once more. He looked at Blaine as he spoke though, returning to work only when he’d finished talking. “I’ve never left England, my lord. Lived in Devonshire my whole life.”

Blaine couldn’t tear his eyes from where Kurt stood, whether hidden in the shadows of the forge and lit only by firelight or crouched by his horse to check the fit of the shoe. He returned to the anvil only twice more before plunging the horseshoe in the large barrel of water. Kurt stood as far back from the rising steam and Blaine flinched away, the sizzling sound of metal cooling drowning out the crackling of the fire and the sounds of the market behind them.

The rest of the shodding of Blaine’s horse passed in what seemed like a blink of an eye. Blaine watched Kurt as he nailed the shoe into place, remove the sharp points of the nails and smooth the edges with the intimidating rasp like he was using a paintbrush.

Pavarotti whinnied happily when Kurt finally finished and pawed his newly shod hoof against the ground. Neither Kurt nor Blaine could help the smiles that crept onto their faces as they watched the horse test the new shoe and decree it was good.

“How much?” Blaine asked, taking the leather purse from where it was tied to his belt.

“Two nobles, my lord.”

Blaine ran his fingers over the coins in his purse and did the simple maths in his head. Two nobles were scarcely enough to pay Kurt and he wanted to stay here for as long as physically possible, not simply handing over the money and leave. Instead he pulled a crown from the purse, worth two and a half times what Kurt had offered first.

He protested when Blaine held out the coin but a look of sheer stubbornness from the nobleman had Kurt accepting the payment without real protest. Blaine tore his eyes from Kurt, whose luscious lips were curled in a small half smile as he glanced from the coin in his hand to Blaine, and led Pavarotti out of the forge gate.

He took one last look at Kurt, still bathed in the firelight from the forge and blue eyes shining once more, before he mounted Pavarotti and nudged his horse to start moving back towards home.

--

Blaine visited the Hummel forge twice more with genuine reasons to go to that forge specifically. He was in town both times and had headed to the forge first before turning back to head home. He’d seen Kurt both of those visits but Kurt’s father had also been present so Blaine could hardly talk more with the man he’d come to see.

The third time he made the journey especially. He knew the blacksmith in the manor house worked primarily as a weaponsmith but Blaine wanted to try a new excuse to be there and catch Kurt alone.

Luck was smiling on him. Kurt was hammering at an iron rod at the anvil and his father was nowhere in sight. Blaine dismounted Pavarotti with a smile, who nudged Blaine’s shoulder once like he knew what his owner was thinking before allowing him to tie the reins to a post just outside the forge gate.

Blaine pushed the creaky wooden gate open, hinges protesting every movement, and walked over the hard ground to Kurt. The hinges had alerted Kurt to someone’s presence and he looked up to see Blaine, a smile coming unconsciously to his face.

They greeted each other with a nod and a smile and then Blaine presented the problem, holding out his severely dulled sword for Kurt to take. He pressed the flat side of the blade against his open palm to steady it and his long fingers brushed Blaine’s as he took hold of the hilt. Blaine’s fingers were tingling from the momentary contact and he felt his breath quicken.

“We aren’t the best armourers, my lord.” Kurt said, looking at Blaine through his lashes: a no mean feat from Kurt, who was taller than Blaine by a few inches, “Or the greatest weaponsmiths.”

Blaine shrugged and slipped his hand, which was still tingling, into pocket sewn into the outer seam of his tunic. “I was passing by your forge and wanted to have it sharpened.”

“Isn’t there a weaponsmith at the manor house?” Kurt’s voice was light and teasing and he looked over his shoulder to where Blaine stood, the small half smile that Blaine had grown to love, on his face.

This time, Blaine had no answer and he simply followed Kurt into the dusky forge to watch as he began running the sword against the whetstone to sharpen.

“Will you be going to the festival next week?” Blaine asked out of the blue. His eyes were sweeping between Kurt’s hands and the curve of his nose and full lips. He still enjoyed watching Kurt work, being able to look as often as he liked even if he couldn’t talk to him.

Kurt took the blade off the stone before turning to look at Blaine when he answered. “Yes I am planning on going. You’ll be there as well, I assume?”

Blaine nodded. The festival in the following week was an evening of festivities organised by Blaine’s family. Years ago, there was a year of poor harvests in the earldom and people in the town were forced to go hungry. Blaine’s great grandfather had thrown open the doors to his manor house and invited the people of the town to dine with him one evening every week for the following few weeks. The town had survived and every year, the manor house was opened to the people of the town for one day for a night of raucous laughter, bounteous food and joyous experiences. Blaine’s father detested the evenings but had been expected to continue the traditions. For Blaine’s brother Cooper, it was the highlight of the year.

Blaine had enjoyed the festival over the past few years, since he was first allowed to attend when he was seven, nine years ago. But as Kurt told him that he’d be attending, Blaine reckoned that this would be the most enjoyable yet.

--

The festival technically started at sundown but the gates to the manor house were thrown open much earlier and tables laden with a plentiful feast were set up just after the luncheon meal had been eaten. Cooper had organised the drink; having free flowing wine and kegs of ale lining the walls of the keep, many of them open at once. A minstrel was standing at one end of the keep, singing to the elderly who chose a table and sat there for the entire evening, their children and grandchildren supplying them with food and drink. A group of musicians were playing at the opposite side, acrobats performing amazing feats over the stone courtyard floor and flying through the air to the accompanying cheers of the onlookers.

Blaine was cupping a mug of ale in his hands and cheering alongside his older brother as a tumbler was flung high into the air and managed to spin in a tight ball three times before making her way back to the ground. She landed in the arms of her two fellow acrobats and then bounced onto her toes to give a bow.

Cooper took a deep drink of his ale and then thrust the mug into Blaine’s hand before striding over to the tumbler. Blaine could only roll his eyes and turn away. He’d seen his brother charm many a lady into his bed but Blaine had no desire to witness that. He had no desire to have a woman in his bed either.

He scanned the crowd. He recognised many of the people who were already digging into the food or refilling their glasses with wine. Still carrying two mugs, Blaine wandered away from the acrobats and was swallowed by the crowd. They parted to let Blaine pass, not wanting to offend the son of their lord if they were in his way, and Blaine nodded his thanks. It made searching for Kurt far easier if he didn’t have to fight his way through the people of the town.

He spotted Kurt’s father before he saw Kurt, although seeing the blacksmith told him that Kurt had at least arrived. Burt Hummel was walked with a woman who had a small smile on her face and her arm linked through Burt’s. Blaine recognised her from the apothecary but couldn’t place her name.

“My lord,” Kurt’s voice rang out from behind Blaine, filled with pleasant surprise that they’d found each other.

Blaine turned and saw Kurt in beautiful clothes, so different from the tunic and breeches he’d worn every day in the forge. Kurt’s clothes were not of the same quality as Blaine’s noble garments, but he wore them far better than Blaine ever could. He stood next to a tall boy who looked like the woman on Burt’s arm but the other boy was staring at a girl in the crowd and he didn’t flinch when Kurt introduced him to Blaine.

“This is Finn Hudson,” Kurt was saying. Blaine was only half-paying attention, focusing instead on how wonderful Kurt looked and joy that had filled his chest as he listened to Kurt’s musical voice, “my father is courting Finn’s mother so we arrived together.”

“Hey, man, I’ll find you later.” Finn said to Kurt without even glancing at Blaine. He walked off in the direction of the girl he was staring at and Kurt stared after him, obviously torn between calling Finn back to be introduced to the son of the lord properly and just letting him leave and deal with the embarrassment himself.

“I’m so sorry about that, my lord, he-” Kurt turned back to Blaine to try and explain but Blaine raised a hand that still clutched a mug and cut him off mid-sentence.

“It is no trouble.” He assured and then sent Kurt what he hoped was a blinding smile. “And I have asked you before, but especially tonight I would like it if you called me ‘Blaine’.”

Kurt returned the smile with one of his own, lighting up his face and making his eyes sparkle. He nodded as if to say that he would call Blaine by his first name. He’d never done so before and a thrill ran through Blaine’s body when he thought about how his name would sound coming from Kurt’s lips.

Blaine looked around and caught the eye of one of the servants hovering by a wine casket. He was carrying a tray overloaded with glasses of wine and Blaine beckoned to him. The servant practically ran across the courtyard and offered the tray to the noble.

“Would you like some wine?” He asked Kurt, picking out a glass from the centre of the tray that looked most fresh and holding it out for Kurt to take. Their fingers brushed when the glass passed from Blaine to Kurt and where they had touched, Blaine’s skin felt like it was on fire. He hurriedly gave the two mugs of ale to the servant and then took a half empty glass of his own.

They wandered over the courtyard of the manor house together, talking of nothing in particular and everything important. Smiles between the boys were constant and Blaine found himself watching Kurt talk more often than he listened. Then, when he remembered to pay attention to what Kurt was saying, he found himself agreeing with everything he was saying.

The highlight of Blaine’s evening was when he paused by the musicians and acrobats and watched as the acrobats finished their tumbling routine. The girl who Blaine had been watching before he found Kurt had indeed disappeared and Cooper was, predictably, nowhere to be seen.

The musicians waited for the acrobats to take their bows and then played a new tune, a folk song from the town that had the audience singing. He heard Kurt laugh and then join in, his voice high and beautiful and carrying over the noise of the rowdy crowd who were trying to sing along.

Blaine found himself transfixed and could only stare in wonder at the boy he’d befriended. Kurt was beautiful with the clothes he was wearing, his hair swept off his face, his blue eyes shining and his melodious voice filling the air. Then Kurt turned to smile at Blaine and his breath was whipped away from him.

It didn’t return the rest of the evening.

--

The festival carried on far into the night, sounds of song and laughter filling the air and audible for miles around. Every time a local folk song was played by the musicians, a cheer would resonate through the air and the loud cheers would soon drown out the music. This was Blaine’s favourite time of the evening of the festival. When duties had been completed and most of the townsfolk were drunk enough for inhibitions and preconceptions to be lost. Up until this point of the evening, Blaine had duties and expectations. When the people around him were too drunk to care, he could slip off into the night and soak in the atmosphere from out in the grounds.

He took Kurt with him, pulling him out of the gates with his hand. Even once they had left the light spilling from the courtyard, Blaine didn’t let go of Kurt’s hand. Kurt had been smiling a beautiful smile all evening. He’d been laughing, dancing and Blaine still hadn’t forgotten the image of Kurt that had taken his breath away.

He tugged on their linked hands and led Kurt back around the wall of the manor house until they were sat on the ground in a small grassy area between the wall and the forest. The very same forest that ran around the town and was growing behind Kurt’s father’s forge.

“This had better not stain my clothes,” Kurt mumbled under his breath as he moved to settle on the ground. He obviously didn’t mean for Blaine to hear but his words carried over the wind and before he could think, Blaine had shrugged off his coat and thrown it over the patch of grass Kurt was going to sit on.

When Blaine looked back at Kurt, a small look on his face as if to ask if he did well, Kurt had raised an eyebrow and was staring back at Blaine like he was being seen in a whole new light. His blue eyes were sparkling but Blaine couldn’t fathom their depths. He simply rubbed the back of his neck and waited for Kurt to take a seat.

“Thank you.” He said, kneeling on Blaine’s coat first before making himself comfortable on the ground. A smile grew on Blaine’s lips and he settled down next to Kurt, leaning on his hands to sit upright. While he didn’t look and hoped he didn’t make it obvious, he placed his hand as close to Kurt’s as possible without touching.

Blaine opened his mouth to talk but the loudest cheer yet echoed through the grounds and a very familiar tune was heard being played by the musicians. Even Kurt and Blaine laughed, Kurt throwing his head back and closing his eyes. Blaine was drawn to look, following the long line of his neck and his perfectly sculpted profile.

The music was heard over the hubbub of noise for only a few bars and then voices raised in song drowned it out. Kurt’s high and beautiful voice joined them and Blaine watched Kurt sing for a moment before speaking.

“You sing beautifully.” He said and then smiled when Kurt stopped singing to stare at him, a look of incredulity on his face.

“Thank you.” He said again. “Not many people say so.” Blaine’s next question must have been written all over his face because Kurt answered him before he spoke. “Most people say I sound too much like a girl, or a choir boy, when I sing.”

This time, Blaine did cover Kurt’s hand with his own. He gently rubbed the pad of his thumb over the only part of Kurt’s hand that he could reach. He also looked right into Kurt’s impossibly blue eyes, trying to make sure Kurt knew he was being entirely serious.

“I’m sorry for that: because you do sing wonderfully.”

The whole evening, Kurt had avoided addressing Blaine by his name, despite agreeing to it when they’d met earlier. He hadn’t said “my lord” but he had yet to say Blaine’s given name. Every time Kurt had addressed him, a small part of Blaine had clenched in joyful anticipation for finally hearing his name spoken on Kurt’s lips: but each time it hadn’t come, he had waited with increased anxiety for when it finally did happen.

Perhaps it was that. Or the evening, filled with music and good company and drink to remove any doubts from their minds. Everything he’d been feeling, emotions slowly growing until he had admitted them to himself only a few days ago, was bubbling at a frenzied pace, only fuelled by Blaine’s time with Kurt this evening. The image of Kurt that Blaine had gotten from earlier, smiling and singing, lit from behind by a fire, was fresh in his mind and the feel of his soft skin underneath his hand was almost intoxicating.

“Thank you Blaine.” Kurt said softly, thanking him for the third time in a few minutes. Something inside Blaine soared high into the sky. Never had his name sounded so wonderful before: in Kurt melodic voice and his eyes sparkling in the dim night.

Blaine leaned across the gap and pressed his lips to Kurt’s. His mind hadn’t processed the action but the emotions that coursed through Blaine’s body more than made up for the lack of thought. He’d been kissed before; by serving maids or childhood friends who were hoping for it to lead somewhere else. It never did and Blaine had often wondered if he’d ever share in the delight of a first kiss, described so perfectly by the bards and playwrights.

This kiss with Kurt put all the kisses in the poems and songs to shame. None of them described how soft lips were, or how time would seem to slow so that every heartbeat could be savoured. Blaine tightened his hold on Kurt’s hand and pressed a little harder, wanting more, wanting everything.

But it was over as soon as it had begun.

Kurt jerked away, holding his free hand up to his lips and wrenching his other hand out of Blaine’s. He was staring with wide eyes, filled with horror and despair. The feelings that had been running round Blaine like horses at a gallop stopped and he was filled with dread. What had he done? Had he hurt Kurt? Or did he not wish to be kissed at all? Blaine started to apologise, to say that he hadn’t wanted to hurt him or take something from Kurt that wasn’t on offer but he was cut off before he spoke.�

“I thought you were different.” Kurt muttered. Blaine’s eyebrows snapped together in utter confusion while anger replaced any horror left over in Kurt’s eyes. Kurt’s eyes, previously only filled with joy, seemed to darken as he grew angrier. He stood up and towered over Blaine.

“You just wanted to see if the rumours were true? If the nancy-boy really liked to-to- play the flute?” He was backing away from Blaine as he spoke, expression furious. Blaine shakily got to his feet, completely lost in the conversation, but he didn’t walk towards Kurt. No matter how much he wanted to: no matter how much he wanted to take Kurt by the shoulders and shake him, saying he has no idea what Kurt is talking about.

“I don’t-” was all he could say before Kurt spoke again.

“I never knew you were just searching for confirmation, or whatever that was. Well, my lord, you can spread whatever rumours you need to spread. But stay away from me.”

Kurt’s voice was harsh, filled with knives that cut through the haze of romance than Blaine had fallen in to. The way he spat out Blaine’s title was so contrasting to the grateful tone he’d used when saying Blaine’s given name for the first time.

“Kurt-” Blaine called out as he watched him storm away, hands clenched into fists and furious expression still written all over his face.

He turned around once and swept into a mocking bow, throwing his hands out from his sides and dipping far below what he would normally do. “Goodbye, my lord.”

And Blaine was left, mouth gaping and a hole in his chest; wondering what he’d done, wondering how he’d managed to offend Kurt so utterly when all he’d done was following what every inch of him was screaming to do.

--

It was another three weeks before Blaine finally cornered Kurt.

He’d taken to running errands in town more often than not, even offering to take a large bag of used cloth to the tailors rather than send one of his mother’s maids to do the job. Luckily for Blaine, no one picked up that he was going into town for a reason.

He made a point of riding Pavarotti down the street where the Hummels’ forge was built and peering in. The first time, Kurt had been working with his father and Blaine had left before Burt could look up and ask if Blaine had any business for him. He didn’t want to be faced with having to explain that no, he was there to talk to Kurt to explain that he wasn’t testing out rumours and that what the rumours were talking about actually applied to Blaine as well.

For the next few visits, Kurt had refused to address Blaine in any other way than as a servant would address his master. Kurt would never look him in the eye, would always bow appropriately and would work quickly and efficiently so that Blaine had to leave. He turned deaf ears on Blaine’s attempts to talk to Kurt, to explain that the reasoning behind the kiss had been mistranslated.

Luckily for Blaine, it seemed, and unluckily for his horse, another one of Pavarotti’s shoes was thrown. This time it was in a far worse condition, where the horseshoe was still half held to the hoof and the other half was dislodged and pressing into Pavarotti’s hoof in a painful way. Blaine had immediately dismounted and led his horse to Kurt’s, only half concentrating on what he’d say to Kurt that was different from the last few times and would hopefully spark some attention.

Burt was there once again but he rushed out to help Blaine open the gate to the little courtyard. Pavarotti limped inside and if he had been human, he’d have sighed with relief. Kurt ran out and crouched down next to his father, the two blacksmiths quickly discussing the best way to get the horseshoe off the foot without injuring the horse.

Blaine stayed back, only watching Kurt work. He’d been replaying that night in his mind a hundred times over, and their encounters before then. He had memorised the shape of Kurt’s fingers long before he’d held Kurt’s hand. The shape of his lips and the curve of his nose were etched into Blaine’s mind like an artist had drawn them there. And Kurt’s voice played in his mind, singing the folk songs from the area with laughter laced through the song.

He desperately wanted to talk to Kurt, to explain. He now knew of the rumours: he’d asked around and was reportedly told that Kurt was ‘different’ and ‘off-colour’. And with the knowledge of those rumours in hand, Blaine knew precisely why Kurt had run off and had thought the worst of the kiss.

He didn’t blame Kurt: in fact, Blaine blamed no one but himself. Perhaps if he had explained his own situation before he had kissed Kurt, then the evening would have been more successful.

“This will take a little while, milord.” Burt said, bowing before Blaine even though it was totally unnecessary. “The shoe is lodged in such a way that it will take some work getting off.”

An idea struck Blaine like a mallet hitting a gong. “Is this a two-man job, Mr Hummel?” He asked. His hand trembled underneath his cloak as he waited for Burt to answer.

Confusion flooded the older man’s face but he answered anyway: “No.”

“Then may I borrow your son? I have something I wish to discuss with him.” Blaine said, attempting to keep a small tremor out of his voice. He wanted to Kurt to know how he felt about him, how he thought about him. If nothing else happened for the two of them, Blaine was desperate for Kurt to at least know that.

Burt turned to Kurt and from Kurt’s expression, Blaine guessed that his father was staring with wide eyes at his son. They had a small silent exchange, Kurt feverishly shaking his head but stopping when he saw Blaine had seen and then Burt somehow telling his son that he had no choice.

Eventually, Burt faced Blaine again and nodded. “I will have your horse reshod by the time you return.” He looked back to Kurt again, who was slowly and begrudgingly taking his leather apron off and hanging it up on a peg in the wall. “Don’t keep his lordship waiting, Kurt.”

Kurt sent a scowling look towards his father, who only chuckled, and then followed Blaine out of the small courtyard. Once more, Kurt took a long time to close the gate and then slowly caught up with Blaine when he’d started walking before he’d noticed Kurt had stopped. They walked in silence for a few paces until they were out of sight of the forge. As soon as they were, Blaine grabbed Kurt’s arm and began walking him towards the forest: outside of town and away from prying eyes and listening ears.

Kurt looked as though he wanted to rip his arm from Blaine’s grip but he followed, still not dropping the scowl on his face. When they stopped walking, right on the edge of the forest behind Kurt’s home, he finally freed himself from Blaine and took a big step away.

“Kurt-”

“Look, my lord,” Kurt said, speaking right over him, “I don’t know what you wish from me, so please say it and then leave-”

“Kurt, please.” This time when Blaine spoke, he talked louder and after weeks of trying, Kurt turned to him to listen. He didn’t want to start Kurt on the path of thinking this was another attack, when the truth was that it was the complete opposite.

“I didn’t know about any rumours when I kissed you,” He said. Blaine had practiced this in his mind for weeks and did have an idea of what he wanted to say, although he knew he probably wouldn’t say half the things he had practiced. But, more importantly, he knew what he wanted Kurt to know and that was what he made sure was at the forefront of his mind to say.

Kurt looked surprised but he didn’t speak, which Blaine was grateful for. “I didn’t even know there were rumours before you mentioned them. And besides,” Blaine looked into Kurt’s eyes, drowning in them like he wished he could do all the time, “if I weren’t the son of the Earl, those rumours would be true for me as well.”

“I don’t understand.” Kurt shook his head, frowning and focusing on the ground for a few seconds. When Blaine stepped closer, he looked up again.

“My father never really goes to church, so my brother and I don’t either,” Blaine said, hoping this would explain it. “And what they say makes no sense to me. Man was made in G-d’s image, so whatever we do must be what G-d wanted. So how can-” Blaine gestured to the two of them, letting his actions describe what he couldn’t find words for “-it be a sin?”

Kurt had gone very quiet. At first, his face showed the change of expressions from anger to surprise but now it was blank. Like he felt nothing for what Blaine was saying: or that he was so shocked that there was someone else like him. He’d also been fidgeting, tugging at the bottom hem of his tunic and trying to straighten out the wrinkles in the sleeve of his shirt. Now he was still and paused at crossroads while he listened to every word Blaine spoke.

“When I kissed you,” Blaine said, mumbling the words so that any eavesdroppers wouldn’t hear, “it wasn’t out of spite. Far from it. I kissed you because I wanted to.”

Kurt was quiet for a moment more and then spoke in a voice that held no malice. “Do people know about you?”

Blaine shrugged. “I’d be surprised if my family didn’t. But everyone knows that I’ve never had a woman in my bed: while my brother had had many by the time he was my age. And my father has made no plans for me to marry. He has Cooper to carry on the Anderson line so why marry me off to someone who will find out about me and risk embarrassing the family?”

Blaine looked down, his eyes lingering on Kurt’s long fingers for a second before focusing on the ground. How he wished he could take Kurt’s hand and hold it to his lips, even for a brief period. “I am sorry there are those rumours about you, Kurt.” He said sincerely, “And I wanted you to know about me before you thought that I would just be confirming them.”

There was a pregnant pause. Winds rustled through the trees, carrying the last whispers of Blaine’s words deep into the forest. Small animals ran through the brush, ducking through the fallen leaves and scurrying to trees, talking about what they had witnessed. A bird flew high overhead, gliding through the air without a care in the world.

“Thank you.” Kurt’s words were so quiet that the wind could have drowned them out. Quiet but sincere. Blaine looked up and saw the sincerity from Kurt’s eyes, now returned to being so expressive.

They were still standing apart from each other and Kurt took a step forward until they were almost nose to nose. Slowly, like approaching a wild animal, he reached out to take Blaine’s hands. Not wanting to force another thing onto Kurt without his permission, Blaine waited until the tips of Kurt’s fingers brushed the back of his hand. As sparks shot from the feather light touches, Blaine uncurled his fists and took Kurt’s hand in his own.

They stood at the edge of the forest while they held hands and stared at the other’s eyes, as if searching for something deep within their souls. It was as if the world had paused. Two people whose feelings and connection was frowned upon by the society they lived in, having found each other and waiting for the moment that would push them over the edge into each other’s arms again.

Finally, despite his promise to himself to let Kurt lead, Blaine couldn’t help it any longer. Kurt’s eyes were dancing and he’d licked his lips, making them glisten in the afternoon glow. Blaine’s eyes shot from Kurt’s eyes to his lips and back again before he gave in to temptation.

“May I kiss you Kurt?” He asked, his voice so low that even the rustling of the trees covered it up.

But Kurt heard. “Yes, my lord. You may.”

Blaine shook his head. “Please: call me by my given name. I want to kiss you as your lover, not as your lord.”

After a small laugh and a gentle half smile, Kurt nodded. “Yes, you may kiss me Blaine.”

And even a minute after they had finished their second first kiss, Blaine would barely find the words to describe how he felt. Kurt’s lips pressed against his own was a feeling he could experience forever. They’d let go of each other’s hands and Kurt’s arms had circled Blaine’s neck to keep their lips connected while Blaine had placed his hands on Kurt’s hips, feeling the strong lines of Kurt’s body beneath his fingertips.

They drew away from each other and paused for enough time to catch their breath before diving in for more, the slowly swaying trees and the bird still gliding through the air as the only witnesses.

--

In the public’s eye, Blaine simply continued to enjoy utilising local businesses in the town rather than remaining in the manor house. He was in town so often that he was beginning to be greeted in a far more colloquial way than propriety stated. But the bakers and tailors wouldn’t complain about the second son of their lord going specifically to the townsmen for his goods. They would boast that Blaine would come to their shop only to other traders, as if a noble stepping onto their premises made their goods a hundred times more valuable.

Consequently, the fact that Blaine was so often seen at the Hummel’s forge was not a surprise. The commoners of Dalton had been used to Blaine taking his metalwork to the town’s blacksmiths and it continued like there was no change.

However, things were as far from the same as they could be.

Blaine would find any excuse under the sun to make his way into town, often having to stop in as many stores as possible to have a valid excuse once he did return home. And if his journey happened to lead to Kurt’s father’s forge, then that was a well-planned walk.

Kurt would pass his work onto his father as often as he could, taking long walks with Blaine when he did so. Burt wasn’t oblivious: he’d let his son walk away with the young nobleman with a small smile on his face. Even if the smile was tinged with worry and doubts. He’d accepted Kurt’s vague explanation that he and Blaine were simply friends who greatly enjoyed each other’s company without too many questions, keeping the knowing looks to himself.

The forest behind Kurt’s house was a familiar setting for the new lovers. They would walk for as long as possible until they could turn away and reach the privacy the trees gave them. They wouldn’t walk too far into the woods; just enough that there would be a guard of trees in case someone decided to take a stroll in the same place that they were.

With the safety of trees surrounding them, Blaine would listen to Kurt talk about everything. He spoke about his mother and how she used to sing to Kurt before she died. He spoke about how he hadn’t wished to follow his father’s steps into blacksmithing but had instead wanted to find a playwright and perform in his plays.

“I’d be perfect for a female role,” He’d said, “as my voice is so high naturally. They wouldn’t have to find boys still in their youth if they had me.”

Kurt would listen when Blaine spoke about his life, his brother who took up most of the attention but as Cooper was the elder that was to be expected. Blaine spoke about London; a place that Kurt had been dreaming about visiting but never had and Blaine had visited more than once when attending court functions with his father.

They spoke of dreams and of hopes, of wishes for the future and of things that could never be.

It wasn’t until Kurt’s father had taken Mrs Hudson out for the evening that their relationship progressed more than kisses and shy caresses in the woods. Kurt was convinced that his father knew of the true nature of their relationship, as was Blaine, and had been eternally grateful that Burt’s plans had involved courting Mrs Hudson out of their house.

Blaine had met up with Kurt as normal and they had walked away from the forge, before leaving the main town and doubling back to enter Kurt’s house from the small door overlooking the forest. There had been a pause while Kurt secured the door, tightly tying the thick rope that held the latch in place so that no one could surprise them.

Then he’d turned around and stepped up close to Blaine, cupping his face in his hands and holding their lips together. Kurt’s lips were warm as always as he moved them first over Blaine’s top lip and then over the bottom lip. Blaine’s arms were wrapped around Kurt’s waist and he squeezed them, bringing Kurt’s body as close to his own as possible.

He loved the feel of Kurt’s body pressed against him, all lines and angles and strength beneath his fingertips. And Kurt’s kisses constantly left him hungry for more.

With a strangled laugh, Kurt pulled out of the kiss and moved his head further away when Blaine followed him, always looking for more. “We aren’t here just to kiss in the hallway, Blaine.” He said quietly, as if talking too loud would disturb the serene but passionate feeling that had settled between them.

Groaning in quiet annoyance that he had to let Kurt go, Blaine loosened his grip and Kurt stepped out of his embrace: only to take hold of his hand and lead him through the small house and up the rickety wooden stairs to the bedroom on the right hand side of the hall. Hand stitched curtains that had been sewn by Kurt’s mother hung everywhere, adding life to the beige walls. The house had character itself, with a sloping ceiling and walls with different colours of wood where a part of the house had been repaired years after another section. Kurt’s bedroom door was diagonal at the top and there was a large gap between the bottom of the door and the wooden floor.

Kurt closed his door once he pulled Blaine inside and they stood still for a moment, revelling in the fact that they were alone in Kurt’s house and about to do this. There was a growing tension in the air and when it snapped, they dove for each other, lips smacking together and moving in furious harmony.

They walked towards the bed, Kurt leading the way by walking forwards and pushing Blaine in the right direction, never breaking contact at any point. When Blaine’s knees hit the bed, he stumbled for a moment but then fell back, hitting the mattress with a flop.

They stopped kissing then to arrange, Blaine lying on his back and Kurt straddling his hip on top of him. Kurt’s hair was loose and hanging down, framing his face and highlighting his swollen lips. Blaine ran his hands up Kurt’s back, feeling the fabric bunch under his palms, and then lifted his head to press their lips together again.

Lips moved and opened, tongue dancing across each other in perfect sync and the only sounds that filled the room were their breathy moans, their shifting over the covers and the squeaking of Kurt’s bedframe as it protested each movement.

Kurt’s arms began to tire and slowly he lowered his body, pressing against Blaine. If Blaine thought the feel of Kurt in his arms when they stood would drive him crazy; it was nothing like the feel of Kurt over his body, pressing down with delicious weight and shooting sharp feelings of arousal from every point of contact aimed right at his crotch.

Then their hips aligned and Blaine could feel the heat of Kurt’s cock hard against the dip between hip and leg and he tore his mouth from Kurt’s to moan to the heavens.

“G-d, Kurt.” He said, his voice hoarse. His hands were scrambling for more contact, pulling at the tunic Kurt wore and the shirt underneath it until both were bunched beneath Kurt’s armpits. Blaine ran his hands gently down Kurt’s back but used his nails on the way up as Kurt lifted his hips then thrust down sharply again, rubbing his cock against Blaine’s hip and Blaine’s cock against his own hip.

They both moaned this time, loud and guttural, locking eyes as they did so. Kurt’s pupils were wide; only a thin band of blue remained.

“Are you ok?” He asked, his voice far lower than his natural register and Blaine couldn’t control the moan that was wrenched from his lips as Kurt’s voice, laced with arousal, sounded in the otherwise quiet room.

“Are you?” He asked instead, choosing to answer the question with another rather than put into words how ok he was.

Kurt nodded but lifted himself off Blaine ever so slightly. “Can we, um,” he said, glancing down at the rumpled clothes they both still wore, “can we take these off?”

Blaine was nodding feverishly before Kurt had even finished the question but disentangling themselves from each other took longer than expected. They stood on opposite sides of the bed to get dressed, facing each other but not looking. Layer after layer was stripped: belt, tunic, shirt, boots, breeches, underwear, until they were finally naked before each other.

Blaine told himself not to look, not to stare unabashed but his eyes were drawn to the long, lithe figure in front of him and once he looked, he couldn’t stop. Kurt was without a doubt the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life. All the lines he’d felt through clothing while they’d kissed drew his eye now they were revealed. Blaine’s eyes following a line down Kurt’s torso until it dipped into a V just above his groin. His skin was pale but not ethereal and he was flushed in such a way that made Blaine feel flushed himself. His eyes were dancing as he took Blaine in, both of them staring at each other from the other side of the bed for long moments before they moved.

Kurt moved first, perching his bum on the edge of the bed and then scooting round until he faced Blaine with his legs curled on top of the covers. His hand moved slowly over the bed towards Blaine like he was reaching out for him and Blaine scrambled closer, kneeling on the bed next to Kurt and cupping his face in his hands.

They kissed and kissed until they had to lie down, never once breaking contact, hands skimming each other’s skin as they learnt all the rises and dips in their lover’s body. Kurt was breathing hard, taking deep breaths through his nose with sharp inhales every time Blaine’s hands skimmed his lower abdomen or the top of his thighs.

Blaine hooked one foot around the back of Kurt’s thigh and brought their lower halves together. Heated skin met and their cocks slotted together, the new friction tearing moans from their lips and cries of each other’s names. Kurt’s hands settled on Blaine’s ass, rubbing his cheeks with his thumbs and inching a teasing finger closer and closer to the crack between them. Blaine responded by sliding his hand between their bodies, aiming for where their hips were moving in irregular timing to take a hold of Kurt’s cock in an act of bravado he wasn’t sure he really felt.�

Any doubts vanished when Kurt threw his head back, exposed the line of his throat and said: “Oh G-d Blaine.”

The choice between burying his face in Kurt’s neck and watching what his hand was doing was a tough one and Blaine chose his hand. He was gripping Kurt with the same degree of strength he knew he liked for himself. But the feel of another man in his hand was nothing like what he was used to. Kurt felt heavy in his hand, a vein running up the underside that Blaine had pressed his thumb against to wrench another moan from Kurt’s lips. He was longer than Blaine was but thinner and silky smooth to touch. With each movement of his hand, Blaine watched and Kurt fell apart beneath him, moaning loudly and crying out for more, for faster and for Blaine not to stop.

Small beads of pre-come were collecting at the tip of Kurt’s cock and every time Blaine swept his thumb over the head, he collected them and used the pre-come for lubricant as he jerked his hand up and down. He was still staring at his hand on Kurt’s cock, his own cock achingly hard but at the back of his mind for the moment: only when he felt Kurt’s hands cup his face and turn it up did he look away.

Kurt smashed his lips against Blaine’s, prised them open and ran his tongue over the roof of Blaine’s mouth. Kurt kept his grip on the back of Blaine’s head, keeping their lips together and massaging Blaine’s tongue with his own while he breathed harder and faster. Blaine’s hand didn’t stop moving, only increasing in speed as their kissing grew in tempo.

“Oh g-d Blaine, g-d,” Kurt moaned against Blaine’s lips, unable to part with them for long. He had started thrusting his cock into the circle of Blaine’s hand, matching his thrusts perfectly, and moved his hips once, twice and three times before he groaned, come spurting out of his cock to cover Blaine’s hand and his own stomach in streaks of white.

The frantic air that had filled the room stilled as Kurt panted, taking deep breaths but not moving from his position where their lips were still close together. Blaine gently released Kurt’s cock and lifted his hand up, mindful of the fact that it was covered in come so not resting it against Kurt’s back like he wanted to.

His own cock throbbed against Kurt’s hip, reminding Blaine that he was still incredibly aroused and wanted attention. He moaned, a noise that could have been described as a whine, and thrust his hips once against Kurt. Kurt opened his eyes, pupils still blown wide, and grinned a wide smile that showed all his teeth.

He reached up, grabbed Blaine’s come-covered hand and brought it to his lips. Locking eyes with Blaine, Kurt licked up the length of Blaine’s palm, cleaning his hand of his own come.

“Fuck.” Blaine said. His eyes darted between Kurt’s lust-filled eyes and the dip of his tongue where a small amount of come was pooled. Kurt licked his hand twice more, effectively cleaning it entirely, and then balanced himself on his elbow.

“Can I fuck you Blaine?” He asked, his voice still in the lower register and making Blaine’s cock jump.

He nodded and said, his own voice hoarse and far deeper than usual, “Please Kurt. Yes. G-d.” His voice broke on the last word.

Kurt slowly lifted himself off the bed and stood, walking across the room to a trunk just below the bedroom. Blaine watched him for a moment as he rummaged through the trunk, searching for something important, and slowly stroked his own cock.

“On your back.” Kurt said. Blaine opened his eyes when Kurt spoke and watched him kneel on the bed and place a stoppered jar of oil on the tiny table near the pillow. Blaine shifted onto his back, one hand still gripping the base of his cock, Kurt settling on his knees between Blaine’s spread legs.

Kurt reached out to open the jar and dipped two fingers in the oil before returning. “Bend your knees.” Blaine obeyed without thinking, holding his legs as tight as possible, cock resting against his stomach and pre-come pooling in his belly button.

A slippery finger circled his hole, rubbing gently against the tight ring of muscle for a moment before slipping inside. Blaine’s toes curled on the bed and his cock twitched again. “Oh G-d.”

He felt full, so full, and the very slight burn that was his muscles stretching only added to the pleasure coursing up and down his body. He was babbling nonsense mixed with moans of pleasure which only grew in volume when Kurt first started moving his finger in and out of Blaine’s tight hole and then added a second, followed by a third, finger. He had to grab the base of his cock and squeeze tightly when the tension in his abdomen grew too much but his legs opened even wider and he began moving his hips in opposite timed thrusts to Kurt’s fingers.

“Are you ok?” He heard Kurt ask, voice breaking through a haze of sheer arousal.

Blaine nodded, sweat-soaked curls falling into his eyes. “Yes. So ok.” He said. He never stopped moving his hips, bearing down on the fingers that had gone still inside him. “Please Kurt. I’m ok. I want you. Oh G-d I want you.”

The time between Kurt removing his fingers and sliding his cock, hard again after watching and hearing Blaine being prepared, into Blaine’s hole was far too long in Blaine’s eyes. He felt empty and incomplete right up until he felt the head of Kurt’s cock pressing against the rim of his hole and slowly edging inside.

“Oh fuck,” Kurt said, “so tight Blaine.”

Kurt’s cock stretch Blaine far more than his fingers had done but any pain he felt was lost in amongst the pleasure. The thrust in was indescribable but when Kurt pulled out, that was the movement that did wonders to Blaine’s mind. With every thrust that slowly gained tempo, Kurt filled Blaine up so full that he could barely breathe. He knew he was letting out breathy moans that were timed with Kurt’s thrusts but couldn’t see past the pleasure to worry.

Blaine arched his back, pressing his chest to Kurt’s and gripped Kurt by the hair to bring their lips together. They kissed desperately, pouring out all feelings of lust and growing love. They kept their lips together, moving in harmony, while Kurt hooked his arms behind Blaine’s knees and lifted them, nearly bending Blaine in half to stay kissing and thrust into him harder.

The new angle had the head of Kurt’s cock brushing passed a point inside him that made his body quiver with pleasure, the tension in his abdomen tightening each time Kurt drew out and over the one spot. Blaine whined, wanting more, and gripped Kurt’s hair tighter.

“Please Kurt,” He cried, the first coherent sentence spoken for a while, “Oh G-d, please.”

Blaine felt dizzy from all the sensations around him, Kurt’s strong body still held against his own and his cock pressed in between them, being rubbed each time Kurt thrust in. After Blaine had cried out, Kurt had pressed their lips together again, mouth open as they panted for breath but still moving together, wanting more and more each time.

Blaine untangled one hand from Kurt’s hair and slid it down between their body, circling his cock and tugging in time with Kurt’s thrusts. He was so overwhelmed with the pleasure running through his body that it took very little time before he was quivering beneath Kurt again. He tugged at his cock three times and then the tension broke. His legs shook where they were curled around Kurt’s waist, he moaned loudly against Kurt’s lips and came, white streaks falling onto both of their chests.

Kurt thrust in a few more times before he came too, pressing into Blaine as he did so and following Blaine’s example by groaning into Blaine’s mouth. Blaine’s entire body was still trembling and heightened and he couldn’t help but whine with pleasure as he felt Kurt’s cock pulsing inside him, knowing he was filling him up with his come. Kurt collapsed onto Blaine, both of their bodies slowly unwinding and lay there on the bed, wrapped up in each other without a care for the world.

--

From that evening on, Blaine knew. What they were sharing, what he and Kurt had together, could never be a sin. Every time Kurt slid inside him, his thighs hitting the back of Blaine’s with each thrust, Blaine was driven wild with pleasure. He had grown to love the sound of Kurt’s voice as it dropped in register from when he spoke normally to when he spoke to Blaine in the midst of their lovemaking.

And each time they met up, sneaking up the crooked stairs in Kurt’s welcoming home, Blaine fell a little further in love. Kurt was a bright light in his life, someone he could trust entirely and had no pressures to be someone else with. When they lay together, Blaine rubbing his hand over Kurt’s soft skin, he could think of nowhere else he’d rather be. And no one else he’d rather be with.

They still went on their walks to the forest, sitting amongst the trees and talking about nothing in particular and everything important. Blaine would always cover the ground with his coat or cloak (depending on which he wore that day) and they would sit together, arms around each other and faces close enough that they could kiss easily and lazily.

They sung to each other one day, taking turns to first sing the folk songs that were known so well around the town and then turning to the more romantic ballads composed in the cities or over the sea.

Kurt’s voice had wrapped around him like a warm breeze in the autumn day or comforting arms after a nightmare. Blaine had simply laid back and watched his lover singing. Kurt had closed his eyes and his eyelashes were fanned over his cheeks, which were a little rosy in the autumn weather. The song, sung about blackbirds, was beautiful and the amount of emotions Kurt poured into the words was mesmerising.

Kurt had laughed when Blaine told him exactly that but had kissed him despite the embarrassment. Then, as a punishment that wasn’t really a punishment, Kurt got Blaine to sing one last song before they left the safety and privacy of the forest.

More than anything, Blaine wanted to take Kurt into the middle of the town and sing him the song, words speaking of how they shared a secret place that they wished to return to. It was hardly a love song of the same calibre as some of the ones they’d been sharing today, but the message of returning to a place that was sacred to the two of them spoke to Blaine. Their relationship was illegal, after all.

Blaine often forgot about days he used to call happy before the time he shared with Kurt. That time in London where he and Cooper had sat and watched a play being performed had stuck out in Blaine’s mind as a particularly happy occasion. A court function where Blaine’s father had waited upon Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth and had brought both Cooper and Blaine with him was another evening that Blaine would site as one of his favourites. One day spent with Kurt, watching him as he spoke with the sunlight shining on him, eyes sparkling and lips glistening, made all other memorable days pale in comparison.

Blaine was in love. Completely and utterly in love. No law could tell him he couldn’t act on that love. And no bible could tell him it was wrong.

--

The only weapon Blaine’s mother knew how to use was the bow and when she decreed that she’d like to practice her archery again, Blaine had gone straight to Kurt’s to get the arrowheads made. It had yielded the added bonus of finding Burt gone for the day so most of the time Blaine had spent out of the manor house had been in Kurt’s bed.

Blaine’s father hadn’t expected the boy who turned up at the manor house the next day, a bundle of fresh new arrows held wrapped in cloth in his arms. Blaine hurried to explain that Kurt was a better smith than the bumbling man who worked within the walls of the manor house, even though technically he was a weaponsmith and Kurt was not.

The Earl had waved a hand, distracted by the busy courtyard filled with people mounted onto horses and dogs anxiously tugging at their leashes. “Very well, Blaine.” He said, not even looking at Kurt too closely.

The plan had been for Blaine to accompany his father and mother on their afternoon foray into the town, while Cooper had been away visiting with a potential suitor for the unusually still unmarried heir, but Blaine had turned down the invitation when he realised the opportunity presented to him. He hadn’t planned for Kurt to come to his home when it would be near empty of people, but Blaine welcomed it with open arms.

“We will return when we have found the dress your mother requires and no later,” The Earl said as he beckoned to a stable boy. The young boy stepped closer and tugged at the reins, leading the horse closer and steadying the beast so Blaine’s father could pull himself into the saddle. Blaine’s mother’s horse was standing next to where his father’s horse had stood, saddled and waiting for her rider.

“Yes father.” Blaine replied, hands held behind his back and back held perfectly straight. He only dropped the pose to give a small bow to his mother, who swept passed with a small glance at the arrows held tightly in Kurt’s arms.

When the Countess finally mounted her horse, sitting side-saddle and staying close to the guard accompanying the lord and lady, the Earl squeezed his thighs and trotted towards the open courtyard gates. Blaine threw out his hand and pushed Kurt back and away from the path of the horses. Many of the servants were accompanying them and the crowd of horses that would follow was too large to stand so close. Blaine had witnessed the start of a hunt or an outing such as this to know that even standing at a safe distance from the horses was not safe enough.

The thunder of the horses’ hooves was heard beyond the hill even though the group was small, the gates to the manor house finally closing after the last servant had run out after the horses, already panting with the failed effort of keeping up with their overlord. Once the heavy gates swung close, the sound of metal crashing together bouncing off the stone walls, the few servants still remaining within the walls continued their work and ignored the second son standing in the courtyard with the son of the town blacksmith.

Blaine slid his hand down from Kurt’s shoulder to the middle of his back and leaned in close, lips just a hair’s breadth from the shell of Kurt’s ear.

“Come on.” He said, breath making goose bumps rise on the pale flesh of Kurt’s neck. “We’ve got at least the hour before they return.”

Blaine pushed a little with the hand held against Kurt’s back and waited until his lover had started walking before following him inside the manor house. The manor house had belonged to Blaine’s family for five generations in its current state. If Kurt’s house had character, this house had history. Paintings adorned the strong stone and wood walls, all showing different generations of Earls of Dalton. Tapestries that were all hand stitched by the women of the Anderson family took up the wall space that wasn’t filled by paintings. The dark stone floors were carpeted by large woven rugs and there was a fireplace in every room, filling each room with light and heat in the cool autumn days.

Blaine took the bundle of arrows from Kurt once they reached the second floor, having climbed stairs that were meticulously shaped and covered with a long red carpet. He unceremoniously dumped the arrows onto a table in his father’s study and turned around to see Kurt’s eyes open wide with curiosity and amazement. He was used to simplicity and a homely feeling around the place. Blaine’s home might be filled with the grandeur of the noble class but it held none of the familial love he felt in Kurt’s home.

“My, um, my bedroom’s this way.” Blaine stumbled over his words as he spoke. He was so used to spending time in Kurt’s bed that the idea of taking Kurt to his bed was making his hands shake. There was no logic to it: he and Kurt had slept together many times and spent much more simply in each other’s company. But the nerves were still dominant under Blaine’s skin.

When they finally reached the room on the right hand side of the manor house, Kurt gasped and bounded inside. A brown rug lay on the wooden floor but unlike in the rest of the house, this rug was small and only covered the patch of floor between the entrance and the bed. A fireplace, containing a gentle fire that was sending wave after wave of welcome heat into the room, took up one wall. The other contained the window, which showed the courtyard, and held paintings of different standards.

“Did you paint this?” Kurt asked, his voice alight with curiosity and mirth. He was pointing to the crudest painting of the manor house, or rather the gardens behind the manor house with the stone building a smudged box in the corner.

Blaine nodded, not proud but not ashamed of his work. He’d painted when he was much younger and his mother had still kept him under her wing. Once Blaine’s father began to teach him the ways of men, Blaine dropped most skills his mother had spent all those years teaching him. All excepting music.

“My mother painted the others.” Blaine pointed out the two other and far more impressive paintings in the room. One was of the house and the other was of Blaine and Cooper when they were younger. Kurt traced the wooden frame around the painting of Blaine in his youth for a brief moment. Then he turned around and practically skipped to the bed.

It was at least double the size of Kurt’s, brown covers to match the floor rug and the colour of the wooden walls, pillows lying neatly at the top of the mattress but now all bunched in the middle as Kurt flopped down into the middle of them. He had a small smile on his face, corners of his lips barely curling, and looked utterly content. He’d sunk a little way into the gap between two of the pillows and was hidden from view: Blaine could only see the small smile and the very tip of his curved nose.

Slowly and not wanting to ruin the calmness that had settled over the two of them, Blaine walked across the wooden floor and settled on the mattress himself. He bent down and removed his boots, unlacing first his right and then his left, and by the time he’d righted himself, Kurt had sat up. His hair was a little messy, stray locks falling into his eyes, his cheeks were a little flushed and his eyes were sparkling. He looked utterly beautiful.

Blaine couldn’t help leaning over and cupping a soft cheek in his hand. They gazed at each other for a brief moment until Blaine leaned forward and pressed a very soft kiss to Kurt’s lips. They broke apart but Kurt followed as Blaine moved back, eagerly attaching their lips once more.

“Should we be doing this?” Kurt asked after a moment. He looked right into Blaine’s eyes as he spoke, his own eyes filled with the vulnerability and fear of being caught making love to the son of the Earl.

“My parents won’t return for the hour,” Blaine said, hurrying to assure Kurt that they’d be fine, “and they have most of the servants with them. Anyone else won’t come up here and won’t come into my room with the door closed.”

Apparently that satisfied Kurt. Strong arms wrapped around Blaine’s neck and pulled tightly, returning to the positions they had had before their brief talk. Kurt’s arms kept their faces close together and their lips attached. They kept their lips closed for the time being, simply massaging each other’s lips until they were red and swollen and quivering with desire for more. Finally prising his lips open, Kurt swept his tongue into Blaine’s mouth, first running it over Blaine’s tongue and then tracing the top of Blaine’s mouth as they kissed deeper and deeper.

They broke the kiss for two things. First to lie down comfortably side by side on the bed, arms still wrapped around each other and legs tangled together, and second when they tore their clothes from their bodies as fast as they could in the midst of passion. Blaine did stand for a moment to place the folded shirts and tunics on a nearby chair but dove onto the bed to return to Kurt as fast as he could.

“Do you have any of that oil?” Kurt asked, his voice low and quiet. He’d been kissing his way up Blaine’s neck and had ended at the join of neck and jaw, licking round the shell of Blaine’s ear before he spoke. Blaine’s nails dug into Kurt’s skin as shivers ran down his spine, pooling in his groin, and a groan filled the air.

“Yeah,” Kurt had long since told Blaine where he’d found the oil they used to aid their lovemaking. And as soon as Blaine had found the trader, he’d bought enough to supply them for a while. He had never wanted to be in a position where all he and Kurt wanted was for Kurt to be buried balls deep inside him but had no oil to help them along.

“Yeah, it’s in my trunk.” Blaine managed to complete his sentence but not without another full body quiver as Kurt licked the entire length of Blaine’s neck, from collarbone to jaw.

He slowly untangled his legs from Kurt’s and after a passionate, open mouthed kiss that spoke volumes of how he never wanted to leave him, Blaine stood and hurried over to open the trunk. He rummaged around and pushed aside purchases wrapped in cloth and hidden from the prying eyes of servants. The oil was in a jar wrapped in a similar cloth and Blaine let out a cry of relief when his fingers closed on the round, smooth pot. He hurried back, cock jutting out from his body and he couldn’t help but marvel at the sight that beheld him.

Kurt had been lying on his front, draped over Blaine’s chest with their legs entwined, and he hadn’t moved. His strong shoulders were clearly on display, lines of muscles running down his back and ending at his pert bum that looked so inviting. His legs were long and as eye-catching as the rest of him. It was a sight Blaine would never give up.

Kurt reached out with one hand and tugged Blaine back onto the bed. They paused for enough time to unwrap the jar from its cloth coverings and place it on a small table not far from the bedside. Then Kurt reached out and wrapped his hand around Blaine’s cock, sucking his earlobe into his mouth at the same time.

Blaine’s hands flew to Kurt, running his nails down his back until they reached his bum. Blaine squeezed the soft, hot skin before sliding onto hand round to grasp the base of Kurt’s cock in kind. They moved their hands in unison, slowly at first and then speeding up when their lust filled eyes locked.

“Blaine,” Kurt chocked out before smashing their lips together and kissing hungrily, taking exactly what he needed from kiss with each pass of his lips and each sweep of his tongue. Blaine could only lie on his bed, covers bunched up beneath him, and let Kurt take what he wanted, keeping his hand stroking up and down Kurt’s cock.

When they broke for air, Blaine took his hands off Kurt, who whined unappreciatively until he was pushed back until he was lying on the bed and Blaine slid down the length of his body until at eye level with his cock. They had tried this a few times over the past weeks since their relationship had taken a more physical side. Blaine had loved it, Kurt less so but still eager to please.

Making sure he locked eyes with Kurt, Blaine licked from base to tip. He grasped the base and held Kurt’s cock up straight, focusing on licking round his balls in a figure of eight before returning to wrap his lips around the head. Kurt wound his hand into Blaine’s curls, grasping tightly but not to the point of pain. He didn’t direct where he wanted Blaine’s head to go; just kept his hand there like an anchor as Blaine bobbed his head up and down, hollowing his cheeks and sucking whenever he lifted his head.

“Feels so good,” Kurt moaned, tipping his head back against the pillows and fisting his hands, one in Blaine’s hair and one twisted in the covers, a little tighter. Blaine had been concentrating on the head, licking around it and under the ridge before taking it into his mouth and sucking again, and he raised his fingers to Kurt’s lips before dropping his head and taking as much of Kurt into his mouth as he could.

Kurt’s response was a deep throat moan, a choked cry of Blaine’s name and then taking two of the fingers offered to him in his mouth to suck on them hard. Whatever Blaine was doing with his mouth around his cock, Kurt echoed with Blaine’s fingers. They followed each other’s lead for a moment before they locked eyes. A look of passion, arousal and love passed between them.

Blaine took his fingers back and reached behind him to gently circle his hole and push one saliva-soaked finger inside. He moaned at the feeling, the familiar stretch and the sensation of fullness that would only grow when he added more fingers to work up to Kurt’s cock. He moaned around Kurt’s cock which in turn caused Kurt to groan loudly and tug sharply at Blaine’s curls.

“Blaine-” Blaine was pumping his finger in and out of his hole and tracing his tongue up the prominent vein on the underside of Kurt’s cock, ignoring Kurt’s words for the time being. He took Kurt deep in his mouth again and hollowed his cheeks to suck hard, adding a second finger inside himself at the same time. Another moan from him followed by another moan from Kurt and a second cry of his name, one that he paid attention to this time.

“Blaine,” Blaine lifted his head and released Kurt’s cock with a pop, the tip still attached to Blaine’s lips by a string of saliva and pre-come, “I don’t want to finish yet. Not until I’m inside you.”

Kurt sat up and reached for Blaine, bending nearly in two to kiss him, tongue sweeping over this inside of his mouth to taste himself on Blaine’s lips. He reached down and stroke Blaine’s cock a few times, reminding Blaine that he had two fingers buried inside himself.

When they broke their kiss, gasping for breath, Kurt reached over and pulled the cork out of the small jar, soaking his index and middle finger in the oil. Blaine pulled his fingers out and scooted up the bed. He made to roll over and lie on his back but Kurt shook his head and pushed at Blaine’s shoulder with his dry hand until he lay on his front.

Kurt practically covered Blaine’s body with his own, only leaving his legs and bum free. He pressed his fingers to Blaine’s hole, already relaxed but not nearly enough, and kissed the shell of Blaine’s ear again. Kurt wasted no time in filling Blaine with two fingers again and soon enough Blaine was writhing beneath Kurt, sensations flooding his body from the feel of Kurt’s weight pressed against him and the two, then three and four fingers buried inside him.

Blaine’s mind was so overblown with arousal that the time between Kurt removing his fingers and replacing them with his cock didn’t register. What did register was the intense pleasure when Kurt thrust in, balls slapping against him, and brushed over the one spot in Blaine’s body that would make him see stars.

“Oh G-d, Kurt,” Blaine cried out, voice muffled by the pillow. He turned his face until he was looking over his shoulder and lifted up from the bed as much as he could. Kurt leaned over and they kissed as well as they could, tongues still deep in each other’s mouths and groaning as Kurt gained a slow and steady rhythm of thrusts.

The rhythm grew in tempo after a while. Blaine was quivering with pleasure beneath Kurt and every time Kurt would thrust in, Blaine would cant his hips backwards to meet him; which had the added bonus of rubbing his cock against the covers. His cock was leaking pre-come, staining a wet patch on the covers and each time Kurt bottomed out, they released a simultaneous moan that filled the air, which was already filled with the smell of sweat and the sounds of sex.

“Blaine,” Kurt whispered in his ear, his voice as low as it usually was in the midst of sex and sending the shivers of arousal down Blaine’s spine straight to his cock, “get on your hands and knees.”

He didn’t ease the pressure of his body pressed against Blaine’s until he’d thrust in twice more and then stopped moving to allow time for their position to change. Blaine’s arms were a little unsteady but he and Kurt moved with delicacy until he was on his hands and knees and Kurt was knelt behind him, still buried inside him. Kurt took a firm hold on Blaine’s hips, pulled out and then in again.

The new angle sent waves of pleasure rolling through Blaine’s body and he almost collapsed onto his arms again. In this new position, Kurt had sped up his thrusts considerably and Blaine’s entire body was being forced forwards and back with the force of each thrust. His cock was slapping against his stomach, now leaving drops of pre-come wherever it hit him.

“Ung, Kurt, G-d, more, please, Kurt,” Blaine was babbling, his sentence punctuated with gasps and moans as Kurt’s thrusts picked up speed again, “G-d, harder, Kurt, please.”

The response was Kurt taking one hand off Blaine’s hip and stroking his cock. A loud groan filled the air and Blaine’s arm shook as pleasure overtook him from both sides.

“Fuck, Kurt, I’m so close,” He moaned again, getting louder with each word, “So close, Kurt-”

“What in G-d’s name?”

The sharp sound of a female voice in the middle of the room followed swiftly by the sound of a wooden box falling and crashing to the floor jolted both boys out of their haze of sex. Blaine straightened his arms and turned around to stare at the door, still on his knees with Kurt buried inside him. Kurt too turned to look but he took his hand off Blaine’s cock, which was still aching for release.

Blaine’s housekeeper, a portly woman with her brown hair tied up in a bun at the crown of her head, was standing in the doorway with her hands over her mouth. The wooden box was actually a stiff basket that had contained freshly laundered bedding, now spread across the floor by the open doorway. Her eyes were fixed on the two boys on the bed and she’d been standing there long enough to leave no doubt as to what they were doing.

--

Kurt gasped and pulled out of Blaine, his still hard cock jutting out from his body. At the sounds of movement, the housekeeper turned on her heel and fled from the room, leaving the door to bang closed in her wake.

“Oh G-d,” Kurt mumbled. He’d gone pale and was breathing very hard, cupping both his hands over his mouth as if to stifle hysterical cries.

Blaine looked from the door to Kurt and back to the door. His lover was in clear distress but perhaps if he caught the housekeeper, he could avoid all this mess. He could convince her not to say a word about what she saw and then he and Kurt could go about their lives with no worries.

“I’ll be right back.” Blaine scrambled off the bed and paused for only enough time to press a kiss of little comfort to Kurt’s forehead and then grab a robe off the back of his door. He flew out of the room in the midst of pulling the robe over his body. His own erection had died completely by that point but his hole was still open and the remnants of the oil they’d used for lubrication was slowly dripping out and running down the back of his legs.

Blaine bounded down the hall, looking in every open room he could find until he’d checked the first floor. Down the stairs he ran, jumping over the last three, and he followed the path the housekeeper must have taken. The servants often socialised in the kitchen before their duties began and Blaine headed there, running through the manor house in nothing but a thin robe and his bare feet.

He did find the housekeeper in the kitchen, along with the cook and two of the hostlers who hadn’t accompanied the Earl to town. Blaine burst into the kitchen, the door loudly smacking against the stone wall. His entrance caused utter silence in the group gossiping in front of him. For a few long and anxious moments, the only sounds heard in the kitchen was pots rattling on the open stove, the sound of chickens clucking in the backyard and Blaine’s heavy breathing.

He was staring right at the housekeeper, daring her to speak. But he’d gotten there too late.

“If it’s true, my lord,” one of the hostlers said, a gruff man with a deep voice, “then you belong in hell.”

The bottom dropped out of Blaine’s stomach and he knew his run through the house, and his abandonment of Kurt while he was on the verge of panicking, was in vain. He straightened his posture, trying to fall back into the image of Blaine Anderson, second son of the Earl of Dalton; as opposed to a man being found with his male lover buried to hilt inside him, in direct defiance of both the laws of G-d and the laws of the land.

“I am still the son of your Lord,” Blaine said, praying that the shakiness he felt in his bones was kept out of his voice, “and you will address me as such.”

A different hostler spoke this time, a far younger man with bright eyes and an ambitious personality. “You and that effie,” he jerked his head towards the upstairs and Blaine knew he was talking about Kurt, “deserve to be put to death for what you do. It’s unnatural and G-d will punish you for your sins.”

“Your father will certainly hear of your sins, my lord,” The cook said viciously. She had her arms around the housekeeper as if comforting her from seeing a terrible wrongdoing.

Blaine turned his back on the servants in the kitchen but paused before leaving, turning to look at the group over his shoulder. He knew what Kurt would do: Kurt was opinionated. He would be able to snap his head around and lay all four people on the ground to trample over them with his disparaging words. He’d insult the way they acted but in such a way that most people wouldn’t know they’d been insulted until Kurt had finished and moved along.

But Blaine wasn’t Kurt. He may be raised in the noble class and taught that all but other nobles were beneath him, but Blaine had never captured the spite most nobles were simply born with. He’d never treated anyone as lowly simply because they didn’t have a father with a title, or a title for their own. How could he, here and now, tell the four people (who literally held the scales of his and Kurt’s life and death in their hands) what he thought of them?

“And my father would believe you,” He said. How he wished Kurt was here to feed him exactly what words to say, “over his own son. You watch your step or you’ll be looking for a place in Bedlam, which is what you deserve should you speak one word of it.”

Perhaps the threat of Bedlam was enough: or the reminder that they were dealing with the son of their lord. But all four servants sucked in their breath and looked away from Blaine. He stood still for a moment, attempting a haughty look down the end of his nose and then walked away, letting the door swing shut behind him.

He didn’t know if they’d keep his secret. He didn’t think they would. Perhaps he’d bought him and Kurt some time? All Blaine knew was that he’d left his love in a near panicked state while having gone to confront the woman who’d interrupted them. He shouldn’t have left Kurt.

When Blaine pushed open the door to his room and stepped inside, avoiding the large bundle of clean bedding that was still lying haphazardly by the door, he saw that Kurt hadn’t moved from his spot on the bed. He’d curled his legs under his bum and was staring down at his hands in his lap. Blaine could see that Kurt’s eyes were glassy, his eyelashes were wet and he was chewing on the corner of one of his lips.

“Kurt,” Blaine said slowly, approaching the bed with as little noise as possible. He perched on the edge and reached out to take hold of Kurt’s hands. They were trembling. “I’m so sorry for leaving.”

“Did you find her?” Kurt’s voice was croaky and filled with tears. Such a contrast from the deep and aroused voice that had been whispering sweet nothings into Blaine’s ear only a few minutes ago.

“I did but-”

“She’s already told a few of the staff that are still here.” Kurt interrupted. He knew what had happened and that knowledge made fresh tears roll down his cheeks, soaking his long lashes until they shone in the firelight.

They were silent for a few minutes, the crackling of the fire the loudest sound in the room and the clucking of the chickens heard even from outside. Finally Kurt sniffed and sat up straight, looking Blaine dead in the eye.

“It’s no use, whatever you’ve told them about not speaking of us.” Kurt’s voice had lost its tears but it was no less croaky. And his tears-stained cheeks and morose eyes only broke Blaine’s heart. He’d been tense ever since they had been caught and sitting here with Kurt, obviously distraught, was slowly unwinding his taught chest and releasing the emotions. Blaine never wanted to see Kurt cry: if nothing else, Kurt’s rush of emotion would have caused the feelings inside Blaine to make themselves known.

“Kurt, love, I’m sure everything-”

“Nothing will be fine Blaine,” Kurt interrupted him again, “and if they merely spread the rumours as opposed to going straight to your father, then I am still the son of the blacksmith and you are still the son of the Earl. We’ll be put to death at best. They might even bring back stoning.”

Blaine knew Kurt was right; he just didn’t want to admit it to himself. He knew that no matter the threats he could give, the servants wouldn’t keep their secret. He had known as soon as he’d left the kitchen. And the difference in their status only meant one thing: Kurt would take the fall for this, not Blaine.

There was nothing Blaine wanted less than to see Kurt arrested and punished, most likely a punishment that would involve death. He’d die for Kurt in a heartbeat and seeing Kurt arrested, punished and even killed in his stead would destroy Blaine for sure.

“Then we leave.” He said, speaking as his thoughts flew into his head. Kurt looked at him with curious eyes, one eyebrow raised slightly in incredulity. Blaine nodded as if to convince himself. “Yes, I’ll pack a bag now and we’ll take Pavarotti, and another horse that won’t mind carrying a stranger, and we’ll stop at your house for your belongings and we’ll leave.”

Blaine looked deep into Kurt’s eyes, trying with all his might to convince Kurt that this was a good plan. Living on the road until they reached a nearby town: Exeter wasn’t too far. Then they could go to London. Kurt had mentioned time and time again that he wanted to see the capital city, the city where dreams could come true if you look hard enough over the squalor and the sheer amount of disappointment in the capital.

“Ok.” Kurt was smiling now, a smile that could have broken a wall of ice around a cold heart. “Ok, we’ll leave.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

Before Blaine jumped off the bed, he held Kurt’s face in his hands and kissed him. He poured all emotion into the kiss, trying to tell Kurt that he loved him, that he was so grateful they were here together, and that they would be fine.

Blaine only had to pack clothes and he left the most exquisite ones behind at that. He’d leapt off the bed and grabbed a large bag specifically for travelling to fill, also pulling out two saddle bags to pack some of his belongings in as well. He left one saddle bag for Kurt: if they both had one pack each and a saddle bag, then that could give them equal space for their belongings when they started their lives together.

He could hear Kurt moving around the room behind him, getting dressed and wrapping the oil jar and a few of Blaine’s most precious items in cloth for safe keeping. Blaine was frantically throwing open the wooden cupboard doors and stuffing shirts and breeches chaotically into the depths of the canvas bag. After a second’s hesitation, he added in a few tunics and one pair of boots.

“Kurt, will you need to take any of your blacksmithing tools?” He asked, not turning around to look as he addressed his lover. Blaine doubted that blacksmithing tools would be much use on a runaway journey of passion but he wouldn’t begrudge Kurt his family heirlooms. He was going to bring with a small figurine of a knight on horseback that Cooper had given him as a birthday present, and that wouldn’t even fetch a price if they had to sell it in a pinch.

“Kurt?” Blaine asked again when he noticed Kurt hadn’t spoken. He was still stuffing belongings into the canvas pack, shoving two daggers deep into the depths and keeping on dagger on the bed to wear once he put his own clothes on. Blaine pondered at taking the robe but decided against it. Taking too many pointless items would not be worth the loss of space.

“Kurt?” Finally Blaine turned around. Kurt had stopped moving around the room, although the pile of items Kurt had wrapped were lying on the bed. Blaine ignored them entirely, his attention focused on Kurt.

Kurt had his back to the room, standing right in front of the window. He’d only managed to slip his breeches, boots and shirt on, his tunic dangling in one hand and the other raised to cover his mouth. Blaine walked around the bed to get closer to Kurt and to see what was wrong.

He saw Kurt’s eyes filled with tears once again. They were flowing down his cheeks like the trickling streams in the forest they’d used as their haven. Blaine rested his hand on the small of Kurt’s back, trying to be comforting, but his breath caught in his throat.

The window showed the courtyard. A courtyard filled with the returned servants, guards and Blaine’s parents. Standing in front of the group was Blaine’s father and he was staring at a group of four servants who were talking to him with rapid arm movements and emphatic tones.

All at once, the gruff hostler who’d spoken first to Blaine, turned around and pointed directly to where Kurt and Blaine were hidden behind the glass, watching as their lives collapsed around them.

--

The cell in the gaol was cold. It was dark inside and the sunset shone through a tiny window in the room beyond the gaol cell Blaine had been unceremoniously thrown into. He still only wore the thin robe but had been permitted boots: he was the son of the Earl after all. Kurt had been thrown into the same cell and was curled up on the floor. As soon as the doors to their cell had been locked, Blaine had wrapped his arms around Kurt’s quivering form, staring with accusing eyes at the man who had locked them inside. If Blaine was glad for anything, it was that Kurt had had the sense to dress before they had been arrested by righteous guards and taken by foot to the town gaol.

Blaine had pleaded with his father to let them go, to let them leave, to believe him that they were not sinners. But the Earl had barely spared his second son a glance. The smug looks on the hostlers’ faces made Blaine’s blood boil in his veins but he could do nothing about it. He wore nothing but a robe and wasn’t carrying his sword belt. His arms had been held tightly by two of the guards charged with bringing the lovers out of the manor house and to the courtyard.

The Earl had demanded Blaine and Kurt be dragged by foot to the gaol out in the courtyard and the sniggers that followed in their wake were still playing over and over in Blaine’s ears. The look a sheer disgust in his father’s eyes and despair in his mother’s eyes were also at the forefront of Blaine’s mind. The only thing prevalent was Kurt.

“Don’t go near them two in there,” A guard said loudly. He threw the key to their cell to a new man who had come on duty at the gaol. “They be Greek by injection, them lot.”

The disgusted sound that came out of the new guard’s mouth made both Kurt and Blaine flinch. But he headed the first gaoler’s words and stayed away from them. It was based on fear and disgust but it gave the lovers the privacy they needed to deal with the new development in their hasty plans to escape from Dalton.

“Cooper will return tomorrow and he’ll get us out of this mess.” Blaine said. He was saying it for Kurt’s benefit and for his own. He wasn’t even sure he believed in what he was saying. He was just looking for anything positive and grabbing onto those straws as tightly as he could, denying the inevitable for as long as possible.

Kurt knew he was speaking out of false hope. He laughed, a sound punctuated with watery breaths and then looked up at Blaine from within the circle of his arms. “I doubt it, Blaine.”

Blaine could only shrug. False optimism aside, there was nowhere else to look to for comfort. Blaine knew the law. Her Majesty had re-enacted the act only two years ago. Buggery was illegal and punishable by death. An act that they had been caught doing. What made his heart soar was that he had been caught being buggered. Perhaps this magistrate, who sat in his father’s pocket, would interpret the act and claim that it was only the receiver who was accountable. Kurt was the one giving and therefore not breaking the law. Kurt could survive.

Blaine would go happily to his death if he knew Kurt would survive.

“I know what you’re thinking, Blaine.” Kurt said. They had been silent for a while, wrapped together in each other’s arms on the cold, grimy stone floor of the gaol. Blaine made a non-committal noise, asking Kurt what he meant. “You’re thinking about the trial that we’ll have.”

“You’re in no danger, Kurt,” Blaine replied immediately. He suppressed a shiver. Night had fallen and with it brought the cold air licking at Blaine’s skin like whips. “I was the one taking: I was the one breaking the law. There’s nothing they can do to you.”

Kurt started shaking in Blaine’s arms, no noise coming from him. At first, Blaine lifted his head from where it had rested on Kurt’s shoulder to look at his lover with alarm but then relaxed. Kurt was laughing, one hand over his mouth to keep the sound from echoing through the empty gaol and being heard by the gaolers in the room with the fire just out of eye line.

“Oh, my love,” Kurt said when he’d gotten his laughs under control. Blaine barely had time to marvel in the swell of feelings he got when he heard Kurt refer to him as ‘my love’, “whatever the magistrate decides, I’ll be up there on the gallows with you.”

Blaine opened his mouth to protest but Kurt shook his head. “I’m the son of a blacksmith who dared to sleep with the son of the Earl. They won’t wish for me to walk around the town unharmed while you lie in the ground.”

There was no reply to that. Blaine’s heart twisted inside his chest but there was no reply.

“I love you, Kurt.” He said instead. They had yet to exchange vows of love, so rare in the world that they lived in that many men refused to admit that it was possible for a man to love. But Blaine knew that faced with his death and with Kurt alongside him, he wanted nothing more than to let the man he loved know exactly how he felt.

Kurt was silent for a short moment before he spoke. “I love you too.” He leaned forward to kiss Blaine but as soon as his hands touched Blaine’s freezing skin, he gasped. “Blaine you’re frozen. Come here.”

Kurt left no room for argument and swapped their positions on the stone floor in seconds. Blaine was now curled up on Kurt’s lap and he’d taken off his tunic to wrap it around Blaine’s shoulders. Blaine curled his fingers into Kurt’s shirt and rubbed his nose against the exposed collarbone, breathing in the lingering smell of the forge from Kurt’s clothes, the smell of sweat from their lovemaking and a scent that was so overwhelmingly Kurt that Blaine felt the tension inside him relax a small amount. He could go to his death with the man that he loved: although he prayed with all his might that Kurt’s assessment of the situation, however true it was, wouldn’t come to pass and Blaine would go to his death with Kurt living a full life.

After a long while, where they had had the chance to share a kiss expressed in love, Kurt spoke: “And we didn’t even get to finish.”

Laughter bubbled out of Blaine, the comment so inappropriate in the situation but it was said in such a way that Kurt lightened the mood instantly. Kurt was smiling a half smile at Blaine while he chuckled into Kurt’s chest.

“Oh I love you.” Blaine said again, pressing a quick kiss to Kurt’s lips.

“Keep your holes closed, you fucking bum-boys.” The gaoler shouted, making them break their kiss abruptly and flinch away from the sound. But he didn’t come towards the cell nor speak to them again. Blaine settled into Kurt’s warming embrace once more and closed his eyes, trying to imagine a place where he wasn’t about to be put to death for the love that he shared with another man.

--

It was a week and a half before they saw the magistrate.

Blaine had lasted a second night wearing nothing but his thin robe and Kurt’s tunic but as the sun set on the third day, Kurt had shouted loudly at the guards to deal with their prisoners properly and it would hardly look good if the son of the Earl died before he was even presented to the magistrate. Blaine was given a cloak to wear that night and the next morning, the housekeeper who had first caught the lovers turned up with breeches, a shirt and a tunic for Blaine to wear.

She didn’t look at her lord’s son as she handed the clothes through the bars of the cell and strode out before Blaine could thank her.

“She deserves no thanks for putting us here Blaine.” Kurt had said after Blaine’s thank you echoed through the cells and bounced off the heavy door that had swung shut in her wake.

The days passed faster then, monotonous in their content and bearable because he shared them entirely with Kurt. No one was permitted to visit either boy but Blaine and Kurt had heard Burt shouting at the gaolers to be allowed to see his son and Cooper had tried to command his way in to visit his brother. But other than the gaolers who would bring them slop that passed as food twice a day and the housekeeper who had brought Blaine his clothes, they saw no one but their lover.

On the eleventh day of their stay in the gaol, fresh clothes were thrust into the cell by one of the gaolers. He didn’t look at Blaine when he stepped up to take the bundle out of his hands.

“Wear them; you’re off to the magistrate.” He instructed, his voice low and filled with boredom. He didn’t turn around while Blaine and Kurt hurried to change into the fresh clothes. The breeches were too long for Blaine and he turned them up before tucking them inside his boots. Kurt took a moment to fix his hair, long since let go as the only water they received went on their parched throats.

The light almost blinded the boys when they finally stepped out of their cell and were led into the main room in the gaol. Blaine flinched at the light and held up a hand to shield his eyes. The sun had always been welcoming, inviting. Now it was like the first stage to their punishment that the magistrate would hand to them.

Blaine held out his hand for Kurt and they linked their fingers together. They walked hand in hand down the long corridor out of the gaol and across the street to the magistrate’s room. A hush fell over the watching crowd when Kurt and Blaine emerged. It was no secret and Blaine was not surprised that the staff in the manor house who knew about what had transpired that fateful day had spoken about it. And gossip, especially gossip like this, would travel as fast in a small town as a plague would travel in a city.

After the hush, whispers began. Blaine heard many of the slurs that had been thrown his way repeated and some new ones that made him flinch. He squeezed Kurt’s hand, seeking comfort as well as giving it. The short walk across the cobblestone path had never seemed long enough.

And yet the inside of the magistrate’s court was far worse. Blaine’s family was sitting in the seats just behind a barrier. But the Earl and the Countess were only looking at the magistrate, sat high in his chair with long black robes that made him look like a hawk swooping down for its prey. Cooper was present and he looked haggard, staring at Blaine was his mouth open and his face pale.

However, if Cooper looked haggard, it was nothing on what Burt Hummel looked like. He saw his precious son, his only child, enter the courtroom and jumped from his seat. He strode down the central aisle and was only stopped by the barrier and an angry guard twitching the sword hilt he was grasping in one hand. Burt’s eyes were red and his clothes were mussed. He wordlessly reached out for Kurt but couldn’t reach.

Blaine felt Kurt’s hand tighten in his own. Kurt had spoken of not wanting his father to worry, not wanting his father to ever be in a situation where his health would be at risk. This was an occasion for both.

The magistrate started talking in a low and obviously bored tone of voice, reading like he was reciting the words of a play just commissioned by the Queen.

“We are here today to present evidence that the honourable Blaine Anderson, second son of the Earl of Dalton, and one Mr Kurt Hummel, only son of blacksmith Mr Burt Hummel, have broken the Buggery Act that was re-enacted by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, nearly two years previously.” The magistrate surveyed the boys, standing with their hands clasped tightly to stop them from trembling.

“We have surveyed the Act and its words dictate that the person being buggered and committing sodomy had broken the law, the other simply an accessory to the crime. They will have a sentence of a year’s stay in prison while the one breaking the act will be hung by the neck until dead.”

The bottom fell out of Blaine’s stomach and his heart soared. He would die. His sentence had just been read out and he would swing from the gallows until he choked in a mere few weeks from now. But Kurt would live. He would spend his year in prison, which would be a prison not meant for holding prisoners like the one they had stayed in over the past week, and then he would be free.

The housekeeper who had found the boys had been called up to speak in front of the court, presenting her evidence to prove that Blaine and Kurt had been having sex and prove which boy had been breaking the act by taking during their lovemaking.

But Blaine didn’t listen to a word of it. He leaned close and whispered in Kurt’s ear. “I want you to go to London, Kurt.”

Kurt jerked away with surprise and when the words registered, he turned to look at Blaine with confusion in his eyes. Blaine leant closer again and hurried to explain. “You won’t be able to stay here after your year in prison. So I want you to go to London. Take you father with you but you make sure you go.”

“And join a forge there? How can we: all forges are family run.” Kurt whispered back, making sure his lips moved as little as possible.

“Then find a playwright and perform as the women in all his plays.” An image of the two of them lying back in the dying summer’s afternoon sunlight sprung to Blaine’s mind. Kurt’s head had been resting on Blaine’s chest when he’d spoken about his dreams and a bird had been singing while he spoke, providing the perfect background music to the serene time spent together. “You told me that that was your dream once. I want you to go to London and be the best actor they have ever seen.”

“Blaine-”

“I need you to do that for me Kurt.” Kurt turned his head and looked into Blaine’s eyes. The panic at the prospect of dying was beginning to set in but now that Blaine knew Kurt was to live, he could go to his death in peace.

Kurt opened his mouth to agree but the monotonous voice of the magistrate broke through their private conversation.

“And can you confirm which of the boys was being buggered, committing sodomy and breaking the law set down by Her Majesty and by our saviour the Lord Jesus Christ?”

There was a pregnant pause in the room. Blaine was holding onto Kurt’s hands tightly. As soon as she said his name, he would be torn away from the love of his life and thrown into the holding cell to wait until his execution. It wouldn’t be long. Perhaps within the week. He wanted to remember the feel of Kurt’s soft hands in his own, his thumbs moving very slowly over his knuckles in more comfort than anything he’d felt before. Blaine made sure he was looking into Kurt’s eyes as his housekeeper spoke. He wanted to commit those to memory too. He wanted Kurt’s eyes to be the very last thing he saw before they lowered the hood and then released the trap door to let him plunge to his death.

Kurt’s eyes were so expressive. A kaleidoscope of colours; from blue to green and grey shining out in the light of the midday sun. They were shining, unshed tears as Kurt tried to memorise Blaine’s equally expressive eyes. Blaine knew his eyes were filling up with tears as well. As soon as his name left his housekeeper’s lips, his life would be forfeit.

“The boy being buggered and therefore breaking the law. What was his name?” The magistrate asked, frustration seeping into his voice now that he had to ask twice.

“His name…” The housekeeper paused and flicked her eyes from where Blaine and Kurt stood to where the Earl sat in the gallery. Then she took a deep breath and spoke, her words coming out in a rush: “His name was Kurt Hummel, the blacksmith’s son.”

Blaine’s ears roared. The tears in his eyes dried up in his shock and his head spun round to stare at his housekeeper so fast that his neck clicked. She’d lied. She’d lied on the same stand that she’d sworn to G-d and Jesus that she wouldn’t. But the housekeeper wasn’t looking at Blaine. Instead, she had her eyes fixed on the Earl.

“No.” Blaine said. He too turned to look at his father. The court proceedings were still carrying on but Blaine’s ears were still roaring and the speed of his heart beat had increased. “No.”

The Earl was looking at his son, one eyebrow raised as if to ask for Blaine’s defiance. Cooper was flicking his eyes from Blaine to their father until comprehension dawned. Blaine’s mother wouldn’t even look up from the elaborate stitching on her skirt.

“No! Kurt. No.” Blaine turned to the magistrate, who looked almost affronted that Blaine was interrupting him speaking to the guards to take Kurt into the holding cell again. “No, my lord, it was me. Not-”

“Be quiet.” He ordered. Then he turned back to the guards like Blaine hadn’t even spoken. “You will take the boy-”

“Father, please.” Blaine pleaded, his voice cracking as he argued with a mountain.

“Enough Blaine.” His father’s cold voice was like a dam that water crashed again. No matter how much Blaine tried to break the dam down, it would never yield.

“Cooper,” Blaine turned to ask his brother, his hands tightly gripping Kurt’s and his eyes filling with tears again, “can you-?”

But one look from their father had Cooper, who had risen from his seat, looking helplessly from his brother to his father.

“No!” Blaine turned to look at Kurt and what he saw broke his heart. Kurt was standing with his hands tightly clasping Blaine’s, but his eyes were closed and tears were glistening on his lashes again. His face was turned towards the floor and his whole posture had sunk, resigned to his fate.

“Guards, take Mr Hummel to the holding cells. His execution will be two weeks from tomorrow.”

Rough hands tugged at Kurt’s shoulders and Blaine felt two sets of strong hands grasp onto his upper arms. Blaine only held onto Kurt’s hands tighter, shouting out and crying that this was wrong while he fought fruitlessly. One of Kurt’s guards rolled his eyes and sighed before taking hold of their wrists.

One of Kurt’s hands was wrenched away from Blaine’s and he held onto tighter to the other hand, willing someone to help, to fight, to scream, to protest. The only defiance in his lover was the tight grip he held on Blaine’s hand.

The guard grasped both of their wrists and pulled, tugging at their hands until their fingers loosened.

“Kurt!” Blaine cried out and his lover looked up, still fighting desperately to keep his hand clutching Blaine’s. Tear-filled blue eyes met his. Kurt mouthed something to Blaine, something that he’d only recognise later that day when he was sitting in his manor house and far away from the gaol.

He held onto three of Kurt’s fingers now. The guard was still pulling at their hands. Two fingers. The shadow of how Kurt’s hand had felt in his own was still there, tingling on his palm.

The last two fingers were wrenched away from him and all that Blaine was left with was the shadow. The guards around Blaine held him in place. He could only stare and cry out in despair and Kurt was forced away from the magistrate’s courtroom and taken back the way they had come to the holding cells.

Where he would stay until he was executed at the gallows.

--

Slap.

Blaine’s head jerked to the side, his neck protesting loudly at the sharp movement but it was nothing like the immediate flare of pain emanating from his cheek where his father had roughly hit his across the face.

They were sitting in the manor house, inside the living room only frequented by their family when they had no guests to entertain. A noble family from further north than Dalton had been due to arrive in the next week but apparently their visit had been cancelled and the door to this room had been unlocked to allow for the family meeting.

Blaine had had to be carried here from the magistrate’s court. His father had ordered two of the guards who had accompanied them into town to physically carry Blaine out of the room and throw him into the carriage.

Blaine hadn’t wanted to leave. Leaving the court meant that he couldn’t argue anymore. Leaving the court meant that he had to accept the ruling that he’d watch the love of his life die, because the woman who had caught them had lied. Blaine had shouted and screamed, trying to get the magistrate to turn around and listen to him, to understand that it was the other way around and he didn’t want to watch Kurt die in his place. But the magistrate had walked out like Blaine had no voice and he didn’t miss the look that was exchanged between the magistrate and the Earl, a look that said ‘well done for not sentencing my son to die’.

So Blaine had turned his screams on his father. Tears were ignored as they rolled down his cheeks, Blaine pleading, begging, demanding for Kurt to be released. He had no thought about the other people sitting in the gallery, or the public outside who could hear every word. His entire being was fixed on trying to get the sentence overturned or changed so that he was shivering in the holding cells contemplating the rough noose around his neck.

“Father, you’re killing an innocent man.” He’d croaked, his voice hoarse from the continual screams and the emotion from the prospect of losing Kurt. “I am the guilty party: why kill him? He has done nothing. Please, father, let him live.”

His pleads fell on deaf ears and his father ignored him like one would ignore a bee floating over a flower a few feet away. Instead he climbed into the carriage beside his sons and wife and signalled to the driver to take them home.

“Father-” Blaine tried again, his breath catching in his throat and his cheeks shining with tears, “Father, please. It wasn’t Kurt. It was-”

“I will hear no more on the matter.” His father’s voice was stern and left no room for argument. It was all Blaine could do to wait until they arrived home to speak again, and he stared morosely out of the window at the forest as they journeyed from town to manor house.

Kurt was to die. Ever since the housekeeper had walked into his bedroom, interrupted them and told his father what they had been doing, Blaine had known in his heart that unless they managed to leave Dalton, he would die for his crimes. It may have taken a while to admit that with a few other hopes and denials in the meantime, but he’d known. He knew that the law was wrong and that it wasn’t a sin: how could it be if he and Kurt were more right for each other than most of the pairings that were ‘ordained by G-d’? But the law didn’t see it that was and with that knowledge, Blaine had been prepared to step up to the gallows and let the hangman slip the noose over his neck.

He knew he could do it too if Kurt had been standing with the public or halfway to London. He could go to his death knowing that Kurt would live. But the situation before him, where he would live and Kurt would die, was one he never wanted to be in. Life was terrible if you had lost your love but to die before you even lived?

Blaine’s father physically pulled his youngest son into the living room when the horses stopped pulling the carriage in the courtyard of their home. Cooper had followed, their mother a few steps behind, and Blaine fought his father’s grip every step of the way. He wanted to turn around, to run all the way back to town, to ride Pavarotti without his saddle and bruises be damned, to fight his way into that holding cell and make the guards take him instead of Kurt.

Or find a way to leave with Kurt by his side, sitting behind him on Pavarotti’s back as they sped away from Dalton, finding wherever would let them be themselves. If such a place existed.

His father had all but thrown him into one of the chairs by the empty fireplace and slapped him with all the strength he had left.

“You are an abomination,” He was saying in a low voice but all three members of his family heard him as clearly as if he was shouting. “The Lord does not allow what you have done with that boy-” he spat out the word boy and Blaine flinched at the malice in his tone “-to go unpunished. You will remain here until his execution. And you will sit at his execution and watch. And then you will be married and I pray that G-d will have some mercy left for you.”

“Father-”

But his father wasn’t listening. The Earl turned on his heel and walked out of the room, the heavy wooden door crashing first against the stone wall and then against the wooden door frame. Cooper stood a little behind his younger brother, staring at the back of his head, and their mother didn’t even blink when she ignored her youngest child completely to walk out after her husband.

Blaine sat on the couch in the same position as he had been after he’d been slapped. He’d drawn up one knee as if he wanted to curl up into a ball to protect himself. The smaller he curled up, the less the pain would be. His hand was pressed against his face, red and the imprint of a hand was already visible. His eyes were red and tear-filled and there were clear tracks running down his face, shown in the residual dirt picked up from staying in the holding cell for over a week that hadn’t been removed in his quick wash before entering the magistrate’s court. Blaine was breathing slowly and deeply but inside, he was panicking. One more word would push him over the edge. One more action would break the delicate balance running through Blaine’s heart: a set of scales with the despair over what had happened to Kurt on one side and the shock of his father’s actions and words on the other.

“Blaine?” Cooper asked in a quiet voice. He moved a little closer with tentative footsteps, like he was approaching a skittish wild rabbit. He didn’t stop walking until he was in front of his brother and he crouched down until he was lower than Blaine, lower so he could look up into his brother’s stationary eyes.

“I was ready, Cooper,” Blaine whispered. His thoughts were far from coherent and he just opened his mouth and spoke whatever was on the tip of his tongue. “I didn’t want- It was me. I should be there, Coop’- I don’t want to- G-d, Cooper-”

Blaine finally blinked and looked into his brother’s eyes. They looked nothing alike. Cooper was the image of his father with blue eyes that were warm like Kurt’s but looked nothing like his. Blaine favoured their mother’s family; she came from Spain and Blaine had inherited the brown eyes and darker features from there. Now distraught brown eyes fixed on blue ones, eyes that showed how much Cooper wished he could fix this for his younger brother. And with the message written in Cooper’s eyes as clear as if it was written on paper, the delicate balance in Blaine’s heart tipped.

He covered his mouth with his hands but the sounds of his breathing speeding up, like the hooves of a horse as it galloped, were heard any. His eyes filled with tears again, threatening to spill over like a waterfall. The pain in his cheek was forgotten.

When the door had closed on their holding cell, Blaine had been prepared to die. Now he would live and instead he would watch as his lover walked up the steps to the gallows and be hanged. Blaine would have told Kurt to leave before his own execution, not wanting to have had Kurt go through the same thing that he would be going through in the next few weeks.

Kurt would never have the chance to find a playwright willing to allow a grown man to play a woman, as opposed to a boy whose voice hadn’t broken yet. Kurt would never be able to stand on a stage and bow as the fans cheered and applauded. He deserved so much more than the life he’d lived so far: working for his father because he had to and a few weeks of passion with a nobleman’s son, only to end up on the end of a hangman’s noose.

The words that Kurt had mouthed to him appeared in his panicked mind. Live for me, he’d said. Kurt’s last words before he had been torn away from Blaine. Live for me.

The first reply Blaine had to that was how. How could Blaine live when he knew he had sent Kurt to his death far beyond his time? How could he carry on? But he would have hoped Kurt had done the same thing, if the housekeeper hadn’t have lied to the magistrate. He would have wanted Kurt to have lived that life that he’d whispered in the courtroom. Blaine could do that if Kurt wished him to.

“I want to see him Cooper.” Blaine said after a long time of heavy breathing muffled by his hand. Cooper was still crouched on the floor, his knees bent at an ungodly angle, and he looked surprised at the coherent sentence that Blaine had finally spoken. Or was he surprised by the nature of the request?

“I don’t know if you can, Blaine.” Cooper’s voice was delicate, treating Blaine like he was a frightened child, “He’ll be in the holding cell with guards until the gallows are-”

“I don’t care.” The anger burst out in his sentence. Blaine wanted to see Kurt, to tell him that he didn’t think he could like for Kurt but he would try if that was Kurt’s final wish. He wanted to tell Kurt that he loved him again, that he was so sorry he had a deceitful father and that his housekeeper was a lying whore. And then apologise for being sorry as his regret would not save Kurt from the execution.

He needed to see Kurt.

--

Somehow, Cooper managed to persuade the gaolers on duty that Blaine needed to see the prisoner. He’d begun by sweet-talking them, supplying them with a fresh barrel of ale for the night shift and then pouring three generous mugs for each of the men. After they had still refused to open the door, Cooper had turned off the charm and aimed for the noble intimidation Blaine had never learnt. He’d sat on the small stool, so close to the door to the cells that he could feel the stale air blowing through the gaps in the door, and watched as Cooper’s stare and attitude stopped the men’s laughter mid-breath.

After he’d intimidated them into silence, Cooper had joked about no one telling that the gaolers had technically broken the rules because “that effie is going to die anyway, right?”

Then he’d apologised to Blaine as he slipped the key into his hand and closed the main door behind him.

The cells were as dark and damp as they had been a week ago when Blaine had been here. There were four in this gaol: only prisoners being kept to see the magistrate and who were waiting to die were kept here. Other prisoners were sent to Exeter, where the gaol was large and there was a place to keep the insane should the prisoner need to be taken there.

Out of the four cells, only Kurt’s was occupied. It was in the second row of cells and further away from the door: in fact it was the same one he had been kept in with Blaine.

Blaine shuffled along, dragging his feet out of despair. Kurt was asleep in the cell, lying on the balled up tunic he’d given to Blaine to wear when he’d only had his thin robe. In fact, Kurt was lying underneath the robe, dirty from lying on the floor for two and a half weeks. Kurt had curled up on himself, obviously desperate for warmth. How Blaine wished Cooper had given him the key to the cell. He wished he could surround Kurt’s body, wrap his arms around Kurt and protect him as well as keep him warm in this dank place.

“Kurt.” He whispered. The sound was loud in the silent gaol and his whisper echoed around the room, the walls repeating Kurt’s name a hundred times. Kurt sniffled and unfurled his fingers to rub them against his cheek. However he didn’t move, not until Blaine said his name for a second time.

Now he sat bolt upright and stared at Blaine with wide eyes, eyes so blue they were visible even in the tiny sliver of light coming through the door where Cooper still sat with the drunken guards. He stared at Blaine for so long until he spoke.

“Blaine.” Kurt’s voice was quiet from the disuse but the whisper echoed through the cells and made the small hairs on the back of Blaine’s neck stand up. “You’re here. I thought I’d never see you again.”

The sentence broke Blaine’s heart all over again, which had already shattered into tiny pieces when he’d heard the words that sent Kurt to his death.

“I’m here.” He assured, crouching down until he was at Kurt’s eye level and taking hold of the cold iron bars in both of his hands. He pushed his face through the gaps and tried as hard as he could to get closer to Kurt.

It took a brief moment of tense silence and then Kurt scrambled closer. He stuck his arms out of the cell and wrapped them around Blaine. It was a hug, as good a hug as they could through the bars of a cell. Kurt rested his forehead against Blaine’s and took a few deep breaths. Now he was closer, Blaine could see how Kurt’s face and normally immaculately kept skin was dirty, and he could see the tracks carved through the dirt that showed where Kurt had cried. His eyes weren’t red though: he’d probably cried enough over the past week.

“I am so sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.” Blaine whispered. He wanted to eavesdroppers to the conversation and the door up there wasn’t locked. They could be disturbed at any time. “I wish I had been here sooner.”

“You’re here now.” Was Kurt’s reply. His voice was steady but full of emotion.

Blaine lifted his head and waited until Kurt followed suit. His expressive eyes, always so colourful, danced as he looked at Blaine. “I- I am so sorry-”

“Don’t you apologise for this Blaine.” Kurt interrupted. There was still the emotion but his voice was firm, and left no room for argument. “It is not your fault.”

“But-”

“I am not going to spend what will probably be our last conversation trying to absolve you of guilt that you shouldn’t be feeling.” Kurt took his arms out of the embrace and cupped Blaine’s cheeks, stroking the stubble with his thumbs. “I don’t want you feeling guilty for the rest of your life.”

Seeing Kurt locked up in the cell, seeing the dried up tears on his face, knowing that within a week this cell would be empty again: Blaine’s eyes filled with tears at the sheer thought. He didn’t want to let Kurt go.

“I need you to promise me.” Kurt was saying. Blaine mentally shook his head and could have slapped himself. He didn’t want to muse now. This was, like Kurt had just said, probably to be their last conversation and he wanted to remember all of it.

“Promise you?” He repeated.

“What you told me in the courtroom, about what you wanted me to do with my life,” Blaine nodded, “I want you to do the same. Or go to London and compose for the Queen. But I want you to promise me that you’ll do that. For me.”

“Of course.” He said. He breathed in and the air rattled as it passed into his chest. It was all he could do to keep control of his tears, poised on the edge of falling down his face in waves. But if Kurt was keeping it together, then he had to.

“Although you won’t be able to play those female parts as well as I could.”

Blaine couldn’t help but chuckle although his heart sunk soon after. “How can you think like that?” Blaine asked, his voice finally cracking.

“Because how else can I think?” Kurt’s face now held no smile, no hint of a joke. “I am about to die and I just want to know that the love of my life will live and I want to be able to look upon him and be proud.”

Blaine broke eye contact to look at the grimy stone under their feet. He bit his lips but couldn’t help taking in deep, short breaths as he tried and failed to stop himself from crying. He felt Kurt’s lips press against his curls.

“I’d want you to be.” He said to the floor. He’d try to do what Kurt wanted for him, so that his lover could look down and be proud.

“I love you Blaine.” Kurt whispered into his hair.

They talked of nothings, things that Kurt had wished to say but hadn’t had the time. Blaine talked about the things he would do in Kurt’s memory, mainly for Kurt to hear but also for himself. If Kurt didn’t like a suggestion, he didn’t say otherwise. They sat curled up together with the bars in between them all through the night.

When they kissed, Blaine savoured the taste of Kurt on his lips, memorised the feel and the way that Kurt kissed him. It would be the last time.

Dawn broke and with it brought Cooper slamming the door open and telling Blaine that he had to leave. Tears spilled out of his eyes at this point and Kurt’s eyes grew watery and overflowed for the first time that evening. Neither wanted to say goodbye. But the gaolers who Cooper had let fall into a drunken stupor would be waking soon and their shifts would end with new guards to arrive and throw them out.

“I love you Kurt.” Blaine said into Kurt’s lips. They kissed again and again, desperate not to say goodbye.

“And I love you Blaine. This isn’t goodbye.” Kurt said. It was something they’d discussed during the night. This wasn’t goodbye: they’d never say goodbye.

“This isn’t goodbye.” Blaine echoed. Then Kurt pulled Blaine’s head closer, pressing their lips together for the last time.

The last image Blaine had of Kurt before Cooper pulled him away was of Kurt’s mesmerising blue eyes and red lips. It was so comparable to the night of the festival where Kurt had been smiling so widely and lit up so beautifully by the fires around the courtyard. Here Kurt was curled up in a cell awaiting his death but he smiled at Blaine.

And Blaine smiled back, through his sadness and his tears. He wanted to give Kurt something to picture before the hood blocked his view forever.

--

The day of the hanging dawned grey.

There were no birds singing: all had flown south to warmer climates. Blaine knew that they had sung background songs for them during the days spent in the forest and perhaps they had not wished to see Kurt die.

He was dressed in his best but he made sure he wore a tunic that Kurt had once said looked wonderful with his eyes.

Cooper stood with him, one hand on his shoulder and griping tightly. Cooper had talked to Blaine about this. Blaine’s original assessment that he thought his family must have suspected had been true only in regards to his brother. Cooper had told Blaine that while he didn’t understand it, he had known his younger brother had been of a ‘different persuasion’ in regards to who he wished to share his bed with.

It was Cooper’s hand on his shoulder that kept him from hiding under his bed like a four year old boy hiding from his lessons. It was his brother’s strong presence just behind him that kept him from crumbling to the ground at the sight of the tall scaffold in the centre of the square just behind the Dalton gaol.

The gallows were tall, opposing, casting an eerie silhouette on the ground. The noose was already formed and attached to the scaffold and it was blowing in the chilling wind. Each moved was echoed in the shadow. Everywhere Blaine looked, he would see the gallows and know that within minutes, the love of his life would enter this square and be shown the instrument that would cause his death.

The Earl and Countess were seated just to the side of the gallows. A guard of six men surrounded them and they had left room for Cooper and Blaine to stand right behind their parents.

Cooper had to physically drag Blaine to stand in his appointed spot. It was all Blaine could do to put one foot in front of the other.

The square was full of people. People who had come to point and laugh. People who had come to finally see off the bardache of Dalton town. They were talking as amicably as if this hanging was just another day at the market.

They were treating this as a game and a spectacle. Not the unlawful execution of Blaine’s lover.

The crowd fell silent when the doors to the gaol open. The executioner walked out of the door first, letting it swing shut with a bang that echoed across the courtyard. He was already wearing the hood to conceal his identity, thereby being acquitted of the accusation of murder. But, pulling the lever that would open up the trap door beneath Kurt’s feet would constitute murder in Blaine’s eyes.

There was a pregnant pause. The sounds of daily life were heard from the far away market. It was like the inside of this courtyard was a different world, so separate from the actions of normal life.

The door opened once again and Kurt was led out, his hands tied by rough rope behind his back, and accompanied by one of the gaolers and a priest.

Kurt was clean now, his hair brushed off his forehead and styled in the same way it had been when Blaine first laid eyes on him. He wore his own clothes, the same ones that he wore when he’d been arrested in fact. Blaine knew the clothes belonged to the hangman so it made sense that Kurt would leave his best tunics for his father to sell, or to keep.

He looked pale and gaunt, the three weeks in the dark of the gaol cells and the imminent execution having taken their toll. His eyes were fixed on the wood platform and the gallows built on top of it, the noose still swaying mockingly before him.

Blaine watched his every step from the inside of gaol, where at least he was alive, to the gallows that would end him. The crowd were muttering and young children were laughing. One even spat in Kurt’s direction. Kurt dodged the blow but he sent a glaring look to the child, who only cackled. The boy would live past today, after all.

Blaine had to clap a hand over his mouth to hold in the sound of his tears. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want to see his love die. He didn’t want his love to die at all.

Cooper’s hand tightened on his shoulder again. Their parents didn’t even flinch.

Normally, prisoners heading to the gallows would struggle. They would cry, scream, pull away from the gaolers who were accompanying them. Kurt didn’t make a sound. He kept looking over his shoulders at the crowd, searching for Blaine. His footsteps were audible all across the courtyard; every one watching had fallen silent in anticipation.

Even through his tears, Blaine didn’t take his eyes off Kurt. He watched as Kurt was directed to stand underneath the noose, on the trap door. He slowly stepped into place and his eyes turned skyward. Who only knew how he felt in that moment: staring at the very thing that would kill you, kill you for a crime that not only you didn’t commit but that shouldn’t be a crime in the first place. But still, Blaine watched. This would be the last time he’d ever see him alive and while the last few moments of life couldn’t be called living, this was when it was still Kurt.

The priest was muttering and Kurt mouthed along the words to the prayer. A few in the audience, because they were still watching this like it was a show, mumbled along but even more jeered and shouted slurs and abuse at the boy who was about to die.

With a last gesture from the priest, Kurt’s final prayer was finished. He took his eyes off the noose and stepped underneath it. That was the hangman’s cue. The noose was pulled down until it was at Kurt’s height and then he slipped the knot over Kurt’s head to tighten it just enough around his neck.

A mockery of a scarf.

Blaine knew Kurt well. He didn’t appear nervous or afraid. Kurt wouldn’t want that, even to the end. But his hands were trembling. They remained tied behind his back with the rough rope that had to be chafing his skin and Kurt had clenched his fingers together tightly. But Blaine could see them tremble.

He looked back to Kurt’s face and found that he was looking right at him. Kurt’s eyes also betrayed his fear. Blaine had never wanted to see Kurt look so afraid. He wished a hundred times in that one moment that their situations had been changed.

But their situations would never be changed, never be swapped. Blaine was still standing in the courtyard behind his stoic parents as he watched Kurt wait on the trap door for the execution to pull the lever with his hands trembling.

The fear was still dominant in Kurt’s eyes but somehow he managed a tiny smile. The corners of his lips barely twitched upwards and with that small smile, Blaine had to take a breath through his sobs. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been crying. And the breath turned into another and another but he could only struggle to keep silent.

Kurt opened his mouth and mouthed a sentence across the courtyard to where Blaine stood. I love you.

Blaine had to respond. He had to reply. He knew Kurt knew but he had to tell him one last time.

Blaine took his hand from his mouth, cheeks soaked and tears dripped from his chin to splash onto the ground. He managed as small a smile as Kurt had done, kept his eyes fixed on Kurt’s and mouthed ‘I love you’ in reply.

But it didn’t make it.

The trap door opened with a snap of wood and – crack – Kurt fell through the opening in the platform.

Kurt disappeared from sight, the rope jerked, went taught and then swung like a pendulum, a dead weight at the end directing it where to go.

The wind blew the corpse ever so slightly and the angle raised his legs enough to show the last few twitches of his feet. His neck had broken and that, at least, was a victory. Kurt hadn’t had to suffer through the agony of choking to death by his own body weight. Although if that had happened, it was likely that not even G-d himself would have held Blaine back: he’d had run towards his love and supported Kurt’s weight with his own to save his life.

But there was no need. And a gust of wind filled the courtyard to blow the body high enough once more. Kurt’s feet were still.

Blaine gasped, breath rattling through his chest like chains against stone. His lips were still formed around ‘you’ but after his gasp, he couldn’t breathe. His eyes were wide and staring at the sight in front of him, unable to take in what he had just seen.

The people in the courtyard were moving, content with what they just witnessed. Cooper was speaking in a low voice to his parents and then into Blaine’s ear. But there was no response.

Kurt’s body was the only thing Blaine had eyes for.

He was thinking about all the things that Kurt had said to him in the gaol when he’d seen him a week ago. How this was not a goodbye, only a delay. What Blaine had promised he would do in Kurt’s stead, and how Blaine could adapt Kurt’s dreams of the stage and thunderous applause and make the dreams a reality.

He pictured Kurt the night of the festival, lit up with firelight and starlight and ever so mesmerising in Blaine’s memory. He pictured Kurt in bed, brown hair fanned out over the pillows, his lips swollen, his cheeks flushed from the exertion of their lovemaking, breathing hard but completely sated. He pictured Kurt’s face when they’d finally said that they loved the other, blocking out the cell around them and the circumstances that they did admit their love.

He pictured Kurt as what he was. The vibrant, passionate, beautiful man he’d been lucky enough to know and love.

Not the lifeless body hanging from the hangman’s rope, swaying rhythmically in the icy breeze.

--

Now

--

Blaine ran his fingertips over Kurt’s name often when he visited the grave behind the forge. As if touching his name would make him more accessible. But the elements and the unforgiving English weather had worn the name down to a small engraving. It had been less than a year but the long winter and spring hadn’t been kind to Kurt’s headstone.

Blaine had wanted to pay for a stone marker, a headstone that could be placed here and give Kurt the memorial he deserved. Kurt was already being buried on unhallowed ground, he’d argued, he deserves the respect of a stone grave marker.

But his father had forbidden it and threatened to force Blaine to carry out the punishment laid down by the magistrate. A sentence for a year in prison that had been mysteriously overturned the day after Kurt’s hanging.

However, Blaine had plans that didn’t involve spending a year inside a gaol cell for a crime that he should have been hanged for. Plans that he had promised Kurt he would make sure came to pass.

As soon as summer came, Blaine would be off to London. He had Cooper’s blessing and the promise that he’d return home whenever he could. He also had Burt’s blessing, who had known about Kurt’s dream to star in a playwright’s masterpiece and had wished with all his heart that he hadn’t insist Kurt apprentice in blacksmithing before he sent him on his way.

But how could Blaine comfort a mourning father whose only heir had been killed before he could carry on the Hummel line? Blaine was the reason Kurt was dead.

“I found a carriage, Kurt,” Blaine said, his voice low so that only Kurt and the birds in the trees could hear them, “It’ll take me to London. It doesn’t pass through here for a few weeks: it picks up cargo in Plymouth and then heads to Exeter before London.”

Blaine laid the bunch of flowers at the foot of the wooden headstone. In this weather, they would be destroyed with a day.

However, Blaine visited Kurt as often as he could, every day if it were possible. So the matter of flowers to mark a visitor was easily remedied.

The path of the carriage – or rather, cargo cart – that Blaine would take to travel to the capital would have been the exact route Blaine would have taken Kurt if the servants in the household had managed to keep the information to themselves for longer than a few minutes. When the cart driver had told Blaine of the route and suggested that he hire a private carriage to take him straight there, Blaine had offered the man a price instantly.

He’d walk the roads he would have taken with Kurt by his side.

Dalton town had once been a familiar place, but now its streets were mazes and its people were strangers. He barely listened when townsmen talked although many refused to do business with him even though he was still the Earl’s son. The slurs that Kurt had had thrown his way were now aimed at Blaine.

Every day was a day that Blaine would drag himself out of bed, only succeeding when he’d pick the flowers from one of the gardens and travel to Kurt’s grave. Sometimes he rode Pavarotti and ‘gave him some exercise’ but today he’d trudged the muddy path through the forest, shielding Kurt’s flowers under his cloak.

Dalton hadn’t been home for nearly a year now. All the good memories he’d had before he met Kurt were not replaced with ones that involved Kurt, which only induced a deep-seated grief that would never leave him.

There was nothing keeping him here, nothing bar his brother to tie him back to Dalton. Nothing solid except the wooden cross with Kurt’s name carved into it to mark the spot where his lover lay.

Blaine wiped at his face, the action futile as more tears cascaded down his cheeks to mingle with the rain pouring from the heavens. He hadn’t even bothered slipping the hood over his hair. He might catch his death but while he’d never go to London in Kurt’s name, he’d at least be with Kurt.

“I’ll take my lyre with me,” Blaine continued as if Kurt had gestured to finish his story. “Maybe I’ll inspire a playwright and he’ll write a story about a beautiful young man with eyes like the sea.”

Blaine gave a rare smile, his cheeks even twinging in protest at the action. Kurt’s eyes appeared before him, living forever in his memory. His eyes and the clear memory of Kurt laughing at the festival were the two things brought to the forefront of Blaine’s mind, seeing them clearly whenever he closed his eyes. If he had to live without Kurt, he could live with that.

The birds that roosted in the trees around Kurt’s grave were looking down through the misty rain, watching as the man slowly slid from his crouching position to sitting with his legs beside him in the mud. He reached out and traced a hand over the headstone once again and then placed it on top of the slight mound of muddy ground.

“I’ll get you a stone grave marker, Kurt,” Blaine whispered, swearing his oath to the trees around them and the birds high above them, “So you’ll be remembered.”

The wind whistled back, blowing more rain from further afield and soaking Blaine to the bone. But he would stay here for as long as he could. He’d stay with Kurt.