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Time, they say, waits for no man. It marches inexorably onwards, the seconds ticking infinite into the dark and the unknown. Death greets everyone eventually, sometimes with a smile and an open door, and sometimes with a veil and a promise of sleep. Death greeted Kurt Hummel with laughter and sent him howling back, locking him forever in a shell that couldn’t age and wouldn’t break and would probably withstand the inferno of the inevitable end of days.
And because Death is occasionally wicked with a cruel sense of humour, she gave him a mortal lover with an immortal soul, to find again and again on each turn of the wheel, to fall in love with over and over, only to watch his husk crumble and die.
Kurt’s love knew a trick, though. His lover in life was fae himself, and every year they spend together eats into Kurt’s eternity. Every year gives life to Kurt’s cold stone heart, makes it beat with vigour and purpose, and Kurt knows – hopes – that one day, one cycle, Blaine will watch him crumble, and they can leave the wheel together.
But Death is a trickster.
Every cycle, with every death, Blaine forgets. Kurt must find his lover again, must make him fall in love.
Because only love can break the curse.
*
Kurt can feel Blaine dying, can feel his slipping away in the cold that creeps into his fingers, that turns his hands and arms to living stone. Blaine lies beside him, his hair white and his golden eyes tired, and he breathes his last into the still winter air. With the last wheezy exhale, Kurt’s beating heart thumps its last and stills inside the prison it’s existed in for almost two thousand years. He bows his head and presses a kiss to the papery, lifeless cheek of Blaine’s face, and rises slowly. He has been Blaine’s lover and soul mate forever, and in the tradition of Blaine’s people, it’s his responsibility to see that Blaine’s body is burned so that no one can steal his skin. He can’t yet, though. Although the pyre has been built for days, under Blaine’s explicit guidance and with the help of Kurt’s strength, Kurt can’t raise himself from their bed until the first glimmer of daylight sets the trees shimmering, the purple glass of their leaves shaking its tears for them over the roof.
Once Blaine is situated, and the fire is licking fast through the dry wood and crackling blue where the fresh limbs, still full of sap, catch and spit, Kurt stands back and tries to imbue the cold hard of his hands with the last of Blaine’s energy. He’s gone, though, and Kurt will have to wander until he feels him live again. He whispers the prayers of Blaine’s people, for his soul to find rest in the endless dark, for him to be with his people in the forests of forever.
And then, out loud, he says, in the ancient language of his own people, “Come back to me so we may live and die together.”
When the flames eventually sputter and fade and all that is left is ash, Kurt gathers Blaine’s ashes and takes them to the nearest river, and sets him free to the halls of his kin at sea, just as he has every time Blaine comes to him and must inevitably leave.
Inside of their hut, he makes a mark on the wall. This death marks the 900th time he has said goodbye.
*
The wheel turns fast, faster than usual. It is less than fifty years when Kurt feels him again. Blaine has become a man by the rituals of his own people, has drunk the sacred drink and walked with death, and death has returned him, young and healthy and strong. Blaine is back in the world, and Kurt feels the warmth in his core.
When Kurt reaches the village, the elders know his face, his height, and they welcome him, the ghost man who has brought them such luck over the years. They bring him food and beer, and he eats and he drink and he watches Blaine through the fire. A woman pats his knee, and he looks at her.
“He is good,” she says. “Strong and wise.”
“His name?” Kurt asks, and the woman smiles, her teeth sharp in her wizened face.
“A secret you must learn,” she says, and Kurt laughs softly. Tradition is tradition, and in the end it won’t matter. Blaine has always been Blaine, and Blaine will always be Blaine. Through the flames, he sees Blaine watching him, and he finishes his beer and pushes himself slowly upright.
“I’m glad to see him,” he says to the woman, and she pats his leg.
“Good luck,” she replies. She chews her dried fish, and Kurt slips away into the night.
*
It’s hard, some cycles, to see the lack of recognition in Blaine’s eyes when they first meet. Kurt remembers every life, every single beat of his heart, and he knows their future, the way their story has to end. Falling in love with Blaine is easy. Being someone that Blaine could love is harder.
Blaine loves to sing. He learns to play music on the fallen leaves, the glass ringing beautifully in the silence, and Kurt visits the village to watch him. One of the elders invites him to sing, and Kurt smiles and inclines his head, but the pitch and quality of his voice sounds beautiful with the music of the leaves. Blaine hums along and slowly, with the passing weeks, he grows braver.
“Walk with me?” he says, and holds out his hand for Kurt, who takes it and joins him on the paths. They talk, Blaine about his life in the village, and growing into his role as one of the fae. He’s a healer, he says, and Kurt squashes the smile that grows inside of him, because Blaine can’t know. He is a healer to his core, one of the best men Kurt has ever known, but in healing, he also kills. He’s killing Kurt one day at a time, and Kurt is eager for the endless years to stop.
The day he feels his stone heart squeeze and pump, he almost cries. Blaine kisses him good morning when he reaches the village, and Kurt takes his hand in both of his.
“Warm!” Blaine exclaims, his smile huge in his amber eyes, and Kurt nods.
“You make me feel alive,” he says, and Blaine blushes and looks away.
*
The years pass, as they must. Blaine’s hair peppers with grey, and the lines around his eyes grow more defined, deeper with every moon. Kurt thinks more and more about the curse Death put on him and the weight of it feels unbearable. He knows he shouldn’t, that he’s not allowed to ask, but the days grow shorter and Blaine eternally more frail.
“You could end this,” he says, stroking Blaine’s hair. Blaine’s glass harp sighs in the breeze through the windows, and Blaine reaches up to push his perfect chestnut hair back from his eyes as well.
“I don’t understand,” he says, his voice cracking, creaking slightly. Kurt thinks he sounds beautiful all the same.
“I’m only alive with you,” Kurt whispers. He shouldn’t say anything, but he always begs before the end. “I’m only really alive with you. And I’m tired, Blaine. I’m so tired.”
“How could I-?” Blaine says softly, and Kurt laughs bitterly and hangs his head. They’ve tried so many things. A knife between his ribs, poison, suffocation. He always wakes up again. He’ll always have to wait. Blaine pushes his chin back up. “I know a plant,” he says. “The sap is silver. It makes a drink that burns from the inside.”
It’s futile, and Kurt knows it. But they try. Blaine sits vigil beside him, and they both cry when Kurt wakes up again.
*
Kurt can’t know when the cycle will end, when Death will grow bored of toying with him. He can’t know when his eternal fae lover will find the means to stop his heart forever, so they can both sleep in peace.
But it’s not this cycle. Blaine’s autumn draws to a close, and Kurt feels the chill seeping into his fingertips again. He begins to build the pyre for Blaine, and waits for his eyes to close and fail to open, for the love that beats in his heart to stop once more.
And when it does, he sends Blaine once more to the sea, and makes a mark on his wall. And he waits.
It’s the only choice he has.