A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET MISTAKEN FOR DAWN

PART III
Kurt had thought he couldn't be more nervous than the first time, with him being afraid the alchemist would not do it at all, but he was wrong. When he and Dave arrived to the new place arranged with Miss Lopez, his legs were shaking and he needed to hold Dave's hand not to fall down.

“Kurt, you don't need to do this,” Dave said again as they both stood in front of a dirty wooden door that had seen better days. “We can still go back. I am sure Blaine would even agree to cancel the deal.”

Kurt just smiled reassuringly because he could not really talk. He needed all the strength he had managed to gather that morning to keep himself together. He still wanted to do this, but now that the day had come, everything seemed a little too overwhelming.

After Blaine had accepted to buy his father's Creation Book, they had to wait for instructions from the alchemist. A whole week passed before Kurt could read her answer on the wall he had left his message on. Now that they had the money, she had told them to come there, an even more isolated place than the first sort of lab they had gone to. It was a little apartment, on the fourth floor of a building that looked otherwise abandoned.

“This place doesn't seem healthy, Kurt,” Dave said again. “It looks dirty. You could get an infection or something.”

Of course he could not. The alchemist was not going to cut him open. He could die, maybe. But that would have happened wherever the alchemical process was going to take place in. Again, he didn't answer. He just squeezed his husband's hand and then knocked before Dave could take him and run away. After a moment, the alchemist's voice invited them in.

Inside, the little apartment consisted in just one room and it was completely empty, except for a little stove in a corner and a table, with the usual set of alembics on. Some of them were filled with a blue liquid, others with a greyish substance that looked like jelly and there were little wooden bowls scattered all around the table and filled with powders of different colors. Something was boiling in a pot on the stove. The air was filled with a strong but somehow resembling honey smell.

Miss Lopez was stirring whatever was cooking in the pot and made them sign to enter and be patient for a little longer. Dave and Kurt stood there like they did the time before, without knowing what to do and with all the time they needed to take in the look of the room and be a little scared by it. As they looked around, they saw details they had failed to notice when they had entered.

A pentacle was drawn on the floor in black chalk and they were standing right on the line of the circle it was inscribed in it. Kurt took a step back, both not to be in it and to avoid erasing it somehow. Along the walls, in a very tricky light gray chalk, were drawn some of what Kurt thought were runes. Little, strange signs he could not read that covered the whole extent of the walls, like they were pieces of paper she had taken notes on. There was a blood-red symbol on the door too and it closed some sort of red circle written down on the walls between the gray runes.

“Are you ready?” Santana asked, casting a glance toward him.

“As ready as I can be,” Kurt answered as he shrugged and tried to smile a little.

She didn't smile back and turned her back to them as she resumed stirring in her pot. “It's more than we could hope for,” she just said. “Please, enter the pentacle.”

Kurt took off his jacket and gave it to Dave. Then, he took a step inside the circle, which glowed red for a moment. “What was that?” Dave asked.

Santana didn't need to turn around to know what he was talking about. “The pentacle read his energy and registered it. It's calibrated on him. Now, if everyone else should enter it, the process would be compromised.”

Dave took a step back and glued himself to the wall behind him. She kept stirring for a few moments and then turned off the stove, finally turning to them. “You want to lay down,” she said to Kurt, who was standing there without knowing what to do with himself. “The process can be very demanding.”

“What can I do?” Dave asked, keeping himself so far away from the circle to be almost ridiculous.

“Absolutely nothing,” she answered as she poured another strange colored liquid in the last of her empty alembics. “I guess you want to stay, which is fine for me. But it's really important that you don't interfere in any way, whatever happens. If you can't follow this simple rule, I must ask you to leave.”

“He will stay and behave,” Kurt said, speaking to Dave rather than Santana. Dave could only nod.

Santana looked at them for the longest time, then seemed convinced about Dave’s good behavior and nodded once. She mixed the content of two alembics in a bowl to make a purple concoction which at least looked delicious, since reminded Kurt of raspberry shake. “You need to drink this,” she ordered, handing him the bowl, over the circle's line. “Just a few sips at the time. Don't rush it down.”

Kurt did as she said. With both hands on the bowl, he sipped the concoction carefully, savoring its honey taste. There was a sourer note to it, though. A background taste he couldn't quite recognize. By the time he had drunk it all and given the bowl back to Santana, the alchemist had all set for the process. Now, there was a candle on each of the pentacle's point and she had spread some of the powder in the other bowls on the floor all around it. It looked more like a magic ritual than anything else.

“This is very different from every alchemical process I've seen in my life,” Kurt said, following her every move.

“That's because this is something different from anything that's been done to you in your entire life,” she said back. “Now, please lay down as I begin.”

Kurt sat down and then stretched on the floor, careful not to touch the lines of the star. He shared a look with Dave who smiled fondly down at him. If he felt concern for him – and he did – he was good enough not to show it too much. Then, Kurt closed his eyes to cope with the dizziness the mixture had given him. “My head is spinning,” he said. “Is it normal?”

“Yes, it is. And you should be feeling drowsy too. Don't fight it. Even if you think so, you won't fall asleep,” the woman explained. “Your body just need the right amount of freedom from your mind to change.”

Kurt nodded, even though nothing of this made sense to him. Santana put her hands together and started chanting something they didn't understand. Every time she ended a sentence, a section of the wall would glow red, just like the pentacle had done after Kurt's entrance. It took her almost half an hour to complete the invocation and by the time she was done with it, Kurt looked upsettingly rigid. He stared at the ceiling but there was no trace of life in his wide open eyes. The only thing that kept Dave from reacting was that he could see him breathing.

Santana stood still for a moment. The whole room fell silent and Dave didn’t dare to move as if he could break some invisible structure that had been built by the woman’s words and was now standing unseen over the three of them. He could imagine it as a fragile conformation made of translucent glass-like filaments, all of them interlacing to capture Kurt’s body in a crystal cocoon.

He didn’t know how his imagination had brought him to create such a thing in his mind, but it turned out to be extremely appropriate when the whole structure broke into a million pieces in his head at the excruciating sound of Kurt’s suddenly screaming. He realized he had been nothing but looking up at the imaginary picture in his head, so he turned his eyes down at the floor to find his husband with his mouth open, his face contracted in a painful frown and his body arching so that only the point of his feet and head were touching the ground. The scream coming out from Kurt’s throat was the most distressing and painful sound he had ever heard.

He immediately turned to Santana who didn’t even seem to acknowledge the fact that Kurt was making that sound. In fact, she didn’t seem aware of being there herself at all. Somewhere during the past few minutes, her eyes had gone blank and she was now surrounded by a halo of yellowish energy, swirling like wind around her body. Dave fought the urge to move and do something – anything – to alleviate Kurt’s obvious pain. He closed his hands into fists and kept looking at his tortured body, hoping it was going to end soon.

Kurt felt everything but he couldn’t move. The mixture had relaxed his whole body but only partially eased his mind. He knew somewhere within himself something was moving but while he could not really sense the movement, he would instead feel the pain it caused. It was just a distant echo of the pain it would be if he were completely awake, but it was strong enough to wish he’d rather die. However, even if the process could have been stopped, Kurt didn’t have control over his body to say anything. Whatever sound came out of his mouth was the result of his body own volition, trying to push the pain out of him in a vocal form on his behalf.

His body was on fire. He was awake but he didn’t see anything except the white lightening of the agony he was going through. The last thing he remembered was Santana chanting the first couple of words of her mantra. Then, everything had started to blur and a few seconds later, he had felt the warmth in his belly, almost pleasant at the beginning and then turning in the horrible, deathly feeling it was now. Dave’s presence, always clear to him until the power of the chant had kicked in, was nowhere to be found. He knew his husband had to be somewhere near him, but he couldn’t make out anything except his own voice and Santana, whom he actually sensed as a shadow with the corner of his blind eyes.

Dave was horrified by the mere thought that, if something was going wrong, he would not know. Basically everything that was happening right now looked horribly wrong to him. So, what if Santana was losing Kurt, somehow? What if they were both caught up in that weird energy moving now from one to the other and back, and none of them could say anything to him and he couldn’t save them? He was useless, and it was worrying him to no end.

Kurt had never really stopped screaming. Sometimes his voice failed to came out or it was too feeble to be heard properly, but then he would burst in an heart-breaking screech, arms and legs hanging from his twisted body like the limbs of a puppet. And as if this would have not been upsetting enough for Dave, Kurt’s belly was moving. Under the light surface of his silk shirt, Dave could see peaks and hollows and waves. He could only imagine those were the physical proofs of Kurt’s internal organs shifting to make room for an uterus that was probably being created in that very moment before his eyes. The thought had worried him, the sight was making him sick.

And he felt so guilty for that.

Santana had fallen on her knees, her arms stretched out toward the pentacle and her palms up. The yellowish energy that had surrounded her at the beginning of the process was now meddling with the red glowing coming from the pentacle. Both streams of pulsing light wrapped Kurt’s body and seemed to keep him up from the floor, while the change happened. The woman hadn’t spoken any more words, nor she turned her head anywhere else but at Kurt, whom however she didn’t seem able to see anyway because her eyes were still unfocused and gray.

Kurt had lost track of time. It looked like he had been like this his whole life. He had no memory of a past when he hadn’t felt this pain and he didn’t wish for any more seconds if they were going to be like the ones he had just gone through. The only thought that kept him connected to the present, right now, was that he was doing it for his baby. For their baby, his and Dave’s.

The process went on for an hour, and it stopped suddenly as it had begun. The moment before Kurt was screaming, the moment after he lied down motionless and silent, breathing so heavily that his chest was moving unnaturally fast. Santana went down too, equally drained of her strength. The energies swirled around some more, making a perfect circle over Kurt’s body and then slowly declined to match the black chalk of the pentacle on the floor. It glowed one more time, and then burned out.

Dave felt it was safe enough to intervene now, but he wasn’t sure about entering the pentacle yet. So he walked around it and went to Santana, calling her softly. “Miss Lopez, is everything alright? Is Kurt alright?”

The woman was confused and it took her some minutes to really shake the whole process off. She took the hand Dave was offering her and stood up. The look on her face when she finally came to her senses was very serious and attentive. The writings on the walls had vanished and what was a drawing on the floor in black chalk just moments before, was just the vague trace of a burn right now.

“Is Kurt alright?” Dave asked again. “Can I enter the circle?”

“Yes, to both of your questions,” she said as she needed to rest against the table to hold herself up. The process was as hard on her as it was for Kurt.

Dave ran to his husband who was just now picking himself up from the floor and trembling in doing so. Kurt’s face was really pale and he had black shadows under his yes, but other than that he seemed fine. A lot better than you would expect after all the pain he had been through.

“How are you feeling?” Dave asked.

“Good, all things considered,” Kurt nodded, touching his belly like if he could still sense something move inside. But all the pain had vanished and he was feeling only sore which was amazing. “I don’t feel any different, though.”

“You will, in a short time,” Santana cut in, sipping some fresh water and offering some to Kurt who found himself craving for it. “Speaking of which, your window is already open so you should take advantage of it.”
While Kurt turned red again, Dave was almost outraged. “He is still recovering!” He protested.

“He is already better,” Santana pointed out, nodding toward Kurt who was actually able to stand on his own and was retrieving his coat. “Pain unlike love fades quickly. By the time you will be out of this apartment, he will be more than ready to get down to what you came to me in the first place. And, since you had already wired the money to me, I don’t see any reason to keep you here. Go and don’t waste what we did today.”

She turned her back to them, ending the conversation before Dave could say anything else.

He wouldn’t, though, because Kurt was smiling in a way he hadn’t done in a while.

*
Blaine wasn’t one to get easily worried – life had taught him better than to waste his time worrying about frivolous things, or really, things in general – but somehow his thoughts concerning Kurt and Dave’s choice were keeping his mind clouded with worry and anxiety. He knew he should just stop staring at the rainy night outside the window, for that wouldn’t have made them come back any sooner, but he couldn’t bring himself to finally go to bed and try to sleep.

He didn’t want to sleep and open his eyes the next day in a world in which his closest and dearest friend had just committed a crime against the laws of Gods. Though he knew it wasn’t true, he kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, if he could stay awake nothing horrible would have happened to Kurt, or his husband, or anybody. That was something he often found himself thinking about. That he could help and save people. Someway. Somehow. At all costs. But then, it was so like him, wasn’t it? Always so full of himself, always so arrogant, enough to think he could change things for the better in his own way. Hadn’t the Gods punished him enough, so that he could learn the lesson? Didn’t they already try and teach him nothing he could say or do could be enough to save anybody?

Feeling his chest ache as it usually did every time his thoughts lingered over his past, his own personal crimes and their consequences, he took a step back from the window and lazily walked around the dark room. He hated to feel like that. Useless and hopeless. He learned to live with it as a side effect of his blind faith in the Gods’ will – when you’ve got no other choice than to believe, because you’ve seen how hurtful and merciless can the punishment be if you dare to question the Gods, every hope fades away, replaced by the cruel certainty that every misstep can only result in pain and sadness, and you can only accept it, if you don’t want even worse things to happen to you and your dearest ones – but there was a part of his soul, the one that managed to remain untamed and wild despite time and grief, that still hoped, against all odds, that he would be able, someday, to refuse and overcome that first, essential law.

It wasn’t impossible to live a happy life, even in sin. Some deep, low voice inside him kept repeating that sentence in a whisper, teasing him. But the possibility scared him. Happiness was nothing but an illusion, a distant light Blaine always tried to touch with his fingertips, never managing to reach it.

Pain, on the contrary, had always been so real. So easy to perceive and explain, so easy to feel.

Pain was all he knew, and he knew it well enough not to want it in his best friend’s life. Kurt seemed so happy, talking about his future with Dave and their future child. Blaine desperately wanted to believe that Kurt was right, that his hopes weren’t the crazy talking of a man blinded by his needs, but he knew nothing good could ever come from a sin like that. So he kept worrying. And fear was eating him alive from the inside.

His way to deal with this wasn’t the one a believer like him should indulge into. But then, funny enough, dangerous and scary as it was, the Dump was the only place where Blaine felt free enough to put everything else aside, and just enjoy his life, or what was left of it after all those years. He knew it was dangerous to go to the Dump, especially since he was a guest in Kurt and Dave’s house, but once the thought teased him he usually couldn’t take it off his mind until he surrendered to the urge, and so he did that night too, hoping that visiting that place would at least calm him down, so that he wouldn’t have to think about his best friend’s doomed destiny anymore.

He walked around the huge bed occupying almost half of the room and reached the trunk he had traveled with, kneeling in front of it and taking a little key out of the pocket on his vest, that he kept hidden under the rich jacket he was wearing. He opened the truck, carefully moving his clothes to find what he was searching for.

His mask. And his cloak. Those were the only things he needed, where he was headed to.

He wore the mask and then put the cloak on. He stared at himself just for a moment in the huge mirror covering half of the big wooden closet he had in his room, and then walked out of the room, deciding to shut all the dark thoughts out of his mind.

His personal carriage was still waiting for him outside the gates of the Karofsky-Hummel’s mansion. He woke up the driver and climbed inside. He didn’t have to say anything: his driver knew his habits well enough to know there was just one place his master would like to be, at that hour of the night, so he didn’t ask, and after just a couple of seconds the carriage was already moving, headed to the Dump.

No one knew who was the first to call the slums like that, but nobody ever questioned that nickname since that seemed to be the most appropriate name ever conceived to describe a place like that. Built inside the city but so different from the rest of it that it could easily be mistaken for one of those outlaw brothels that could be found hiding in old abandoned mansions lost in the countryside outside the city walls, the Dump was exactly what its name said about it. A place for society’s throwaways. All its colors, all its lights, all the cute boys and girls crowding the streets, publicly kissing and hugging strangers they only knew by the amount of money they could give them, couldn’t change what the Dump was, deep inside. A dirty, filthy place. A place where the music that was everywhere you could turn wasn’t enough to cover the screams of pain of the poor boys and girls who couldn’t even afford an alchemist to cure illnesses that came as direct consequences of their jobs. A place where the only law to follow was the one screamed by people’s guts, and needs, and selfish desires.

A place for Blaine to be free, to feel happiness, even if only in the little drops of sweat he could feel covering up his whole body during sex with nameless and sometimes even faceless strangers, at least until he had to come back home, and forget that happiness ever existed, to let pain fill every hole, making him numb again.

He often questioned himself on his reasons. Why did he do that? Why did he go there, why did he feel the need to pick up somebody and fuck him so strongly, why did he let himself free to do such a thing if he already knew he would feel guilty once the shaking feeling of the orgasm had subsided?

Why did he so desperately need to feel happy, if all he could do right after was to regret it?

The carriage pulled over, stopping all of a sudden. Blaine slightly opened the curtain covering the window and looked outside. It was starting to stop raining, but the people crowding the sidewalk and the street looked like they never tried to search for a shelter. Most of them were soaking wet, their hair and clothes dripping. Leaning against walls or streetlamps or standing carriages, everybody was kissing somebody. Some of them were half naked and lazily rocking back and forth against each others, indulging in pleasures that would have been more appropriate to be enjoyed in private, behind closed doors.

They all seemed so absent-mindedly happy.

Blaine sighed, waiting for his driver to open the door for him, and wrapped himself up in his cloak, adjusting the mask covering the upper half of his face. He told the driver to wait right there and walked slowly down the street, used to that pace. That was the pace everybody walked to, there. That slow but not too much way to walk that was the first thing you learned visiting the Dump. To walk just like everybody else, not to draw too much attention.

He raised his gaze only when he found himself facing the front door of the Candyshop. If he had such thing as a favorite place in the Dump, the Candyshop would probably be it, since it was the place he used to hang out to the most. He didn’t exactly liked it – boys, as well as girls, though he wasn’t interested in them, were always too skinny, and the place wasn’t big enough to fit all the people jumping up and down and moving on the dancefloor, making it impossibly crowded and kind of suffocating – but he didn’t exactly hated it either. Plus, hookers came with drugs – little, colored pills that, combined with sex, helped making his mind lighter. They called them candies, and that was the reason behind the name of the club.

Blaine walked in, instantly starting to breathe slower, in short, quick breaths, trying not to fill his nose with the bad smell making the air unbearably thick. Sweat and sex and cigarette smoke. He already wanted to go away, but he couldn’t bring himself to just do it.

With music bumping in his chest, silencing the beat of his heart, he started looking around, searching for somebody. Anybody, really. Boys didn’t even have to be cute to interest him. They just had to be easy. Some people liked to court them, even though they only needed money to get in their pants, but Blaine wasn’t that kind of man. He hated himself enough just because of how much he needed that. Enjoying himself while doing it was out of question.

He chose a boy. He was alone, sitting on a stool by the bar. Young, but not too much, big hazel eyes, dark and dirty hair curling up a little on his neck. He didn’t look very healthy, and he was kind of shaking, but Blaine forced himself not to think about it. He didn’t care for him. He never cared for any of them.

He stopped beside him, not noticing the other man approaching. He was tall and elegant, but his face was covered in a black mask, just like Blaine’s, and Blaine didn’t waste a second trying to guess who he really was. Visiting the Dump was strictly forbidden to believers, but it was too big for Priests to even try and shut it down. So people kept going there wearing masks to hide their identities, and nobody cared to investigate about them because once you walked in you signed an unwritten pact with everybody else: they wouldn’t ask about you, if you didn’t ask about them. That was enough.

The man smiled, while both the boy – already standing on his feet – and Blaine stared at him. “Can I barge in?” he asked.

The boy shrugged. “Fine by me,” he answered, “but you’re both paying.”

“Fine by me,” echoed the man. “What about you?” he asked again, looking straight at Blaine.

Insides tied up in a knot and already warming up with anticipation, Blaine nodded.

The boy led them through the club and in the back. Walls were covered with people leaning against them. Boys and girls on their knees blew them like in a well-tested production line. A man finished, another one was instantly ready to take his place in their mouths. The air was filled with sucking noises and low, hoarse moans. Blaine closed his eyes and felt embarrassed for himself for how much he liked those noises, how excited they made him.

He opened them only when he felt the boy and the man stopping by a dark corner in the back of the room. Crowded as the place was, that was probably the only spot left with some space to move.

The boy retrieved a couple of pills from the back pocket of the short, worn-out pants he was wearing, and then made them drop to the floor. He wasn’t that good to look at, even naked. Blaine felt disgusted by himself, because he couldn’t help his own arousal. Everything surrounding him was sleazy, dirty and wrong, and he liked it. He felt good in it. He only managed to feel this good when he was loathing himself.

The man kissed the boy passionately. Unusual enough, Blaine thought, but he instantly understood why when the two parted, and the boy put one of the pills on his own tongue, before turning to him. Then he knew why the man looked so caught up in it, because he himself kissed the boy with the same hunger and need, swallowing the pill like medicine.

Everything blurred out. Sounds began to echo in Blaine’s ears, stronger at first, then dimmer and dimmer with every second. He felt the boy’s body trapped between his and the other man’s, he felt him move and whimper, he felt the salt of his skin on his own tongue, the wet warmth of his body surrounding himself, and when he heard him scream in pain he only barely noticed he wasn’t alone inside his body anymore.

Blaine came with a soft noise, slipping out of the boy’s body. It wasn’t dark enough. He could see every detail. The sweat, his own come dripping out of the boy’s spread out opening, still filled up by the other man’s cock.

“I haven’t finished yet,” the man said, grinning smugly, “You mind if I go on?”

Blaine felt sick and nauseous, he only wanted to run away. He ripped his money out of the pocket, everything he had with him – definitely too much, that was for sure, but he didn’t even care –, he threw them on the ground and ran away, never looking back. The boy kept looking at him for the whole time, his eyes filled with tears, his whole body shaking in pain.

He emerged from the backroom, trying to forget that sad face. His heart was beating faster again, but the music was loud enough to make it unnoticeable. He needed to drink, though. His mouth was dry and tasted bad, he needed something sweet to wash that taste away and he needed it now.

He moved towards the bar and sat on a stool, asking for a cherry-flavored alcoholic drink to the bartender, and he was still drinking when he heard the voice of the man sitting beside him echoing in his ears. He focused on that sound because, still confused by the pill he had taken, he had a hard time deciphering whatever he was saying, but once he managed to concentrate enough he was able to get it, and the stranger only had to repeat twice. Something to be proud of, for sure. “I said that you don’t look any good.”

“I’m sorry,” he answered, clearing his throat, “Do I know you?”

The man smiled in a sweet, almost feminine way, making Blaine kind of uncomfortable. “Would you want to know, if you did?” he asked back in a light chuckle. Blaine wanted to answer, but the man didn’t give him enough time to do so. “Anyway, no, I don’t think we know each other. And even if we did, I probably wouldn’t recognize you, nor you could recognize me, because of the masks.”

Blaine nodded vaguely, staring at him and then turning back to his drink. Conversation. That was unusual too, and he wasn’t feeling really comfortable in the situation. He just wanted to finish his drink and go back to Kurt and Dave’s. He needed to pray, to ask for forgiveness. And to sleep. Gods, he wanted to sleep for days. He was feeling so unbearably sick and weary.

“So?” the man asked, forcing Blaine to look back at him again.

“So what?”

“So, why aren’t you looking good?” the man explained with a little smile.

Blaine shrugged, looking away. “Just a bad day, I suppose,” he answered. “And I suppose you ask every single man sitting beside you how they feel?” he added with a smirk, “I thought pick up lines were better, nowadays.”

“Oh, it’s not a pick up line!” the man shook his head, laughing whole-heartedly, “I’m married. And though this usually isn’t enough for people to stop coming here for sex, it is for me. I love my husband.”

“Then why do you come here?” Blaine asked dryly, turning to him with a frown.

The man shrugged, his eyes wandering over the crowd on the dancefloor. “To remember how lucky I am, I suppose,” he answered, before turning back to Blaine. “Anyway, I don’t usually talk with people, here, but you seem kind of desperate. I always find it funny, you know?” he commented with a little, amused smile, “How clients, in this place, always managed to look so much sadder than hookers. Shouldn’t it be the other way ‘round?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Blaine answered, swallowing up what was left of his drink all at once, “And I’m not interested in having this conversation. Goodnight, sir,” he said, standing on his feet.

“Samuel,” the man smiled, sitting still, his legs crossed, a light beer in the half-empty mug he was holding in his hand. When Blaine turned to him, staring at his half-covered face in shock, he smiled again. “That’s my name,” he explained, “It’s alright if you don’t want to answer with yours.”

Nervously clenching his shaking fists, Blaine turned his back at him and rapidly walked away, deciding it was better not to answer at all.

*
It was around 4 AM when they managed to come out of the building. It was rainy, and dark clouds kept covering the moon, leaving the whole place in the most complete darkness. No noise can be heard beside the light tickling of the rain falling on the ground and on their carriage parked nearby, and the faint neighs of the horses.

Still pretty shaken by what he had seen, Dave didn’t know what to do. He kept looking at Kurt every now and then, and couldn’t help but notice his lost eyes and flushed cheeks, wondering if those could be signs of him feeling sick or something. He seemed someway upset, and what bothered Dave the most was that he wouldn’t know how to help him, so he just helped him getting on the carriage and then sat beside him, telling the driver to move.

Kurt sat down as comfortably as he could, which wasn’t a lot, since he was feeling so weird. The pain he had suffered during the process had managed to fade away pretty soon, leaving room for another kind of feeling, something he could recognize, but that he had never felt so strong before. It was almost embarrassing: he knew he had to feel this way – that was probably the result of something the alchemist gave him, something that could help them use the small window of time they had in the best way – but still he didn’t feel comfortable enough to look at Dave or move closer to him, and that was making him irrationally anxious and agitated.

As he felt the carriage start moving along the bumpy street, he had to undo the first two buttons of his shirt to try and breathe better.

“Kurt?” Dave called him in a low voice, sliding closer to him on the seat and placing a hand on his shoulder, “Is everything alright? I saw you in there, and even now… you seem pretty shaken up. Do you want some water?”

“No, I’m fine,” he answered, shaking his head and forcing a weary smile, “I’m just…” he turned to his husband and couldn’t help but shiver a little, his cheeks flushing even more. He didn’t remember wanting Dave that much since the first months of their wedding, when jumping at each other and never leaving the bed seemed like the only option to pass time. He had always loved his husband, and their fire had managed to keep burning during the years, but it had never been quite as strong as Kurt was feeling now, so much that he barely managed to look at him without shivering, or having to avert his eyes. “I’m fine, really,” he insisted, shaking his head once more. “How long will it take to be back?”

“Well,” Dave answered, thinking about it as he let his arm slide over Kurt’s shoulder, stroking his arm sweetly to try and reassure him, “We’re way outside the city walls, but if I tell the driver to hurry, it’s probably going to take not more than an hour and a half or something.”

Kurt shivered again, clenching his fists around the fabric of his trousers, trying to keep himself calm and focused. There was no way he could wait that much. Not only because they seemed to have a very short time, judging by Miss Lopez’s words, but also because he was literally on fire. His body was almost aching for Dave’s touch. He needed it, he needed it immediately.

He smiled vaguely, shyly looking away. “Would you mind cover all the windows for me?” he asked in a low voice.

Dave blinked a little, although instantly doing as Kurt asked. “Are you bothered by the streetlights?” he asked, since they had just took the only lightened street that led back to the city, “Is it better like this?”

He only had the time to see a little smile curling up his husband’s lips. Then, he found himself holding Kurt by his hips as he straddled him, kissing his cheeks softly. “Mm-hm, much better,” Kurt said, placing his hands on Dave’s shoulders to balance himself better.

Dave opened his eyes wide, surprised and slightly uncomfortable, holding Kurt close to himself to prevent him from falling because of the carriage bumping up and down. “Kurt…?” he hesitantly asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Kurt answered, leaving little kisses on Dave’s jaw and finally brushing his lips against his husband’s, asking for a proper kiss, “Are you? We don’t have much time and I think we should take advantage of every second.”

“…in here?” Dave asked, his voice unsteady as his body naturally answered to Kurt’s, like it always happened between them. “I… I don’t know, maybe it would be better to wait until we’re home.”

Kurt moaned softly in protest, kissing Dave again, this time slowly and teasingly. “One hour and a half is long, maybe too much,” he said in a low voice, rubbing against Dave’s body, “I don’t want to miss our chance, Dave. Do you?”

Dave slowly shook his head, his lips brushing against Kurt’s with every movement, searching for another kiss as he absent-mindedly slipped a hand under Kurt’s jacket, aching for some skin to touch and groaning when he only managed to find the silk of Kurt’s shirt. “I… I don’t know…” he whined, shaking his head, trying to be reasonable despite what his body was asking for.

Kurt kissed him again, deeper and hungrier than before as he opened his legs wider to grind better against Dave, caressing him through the neck of his shirt. “It’s alright,” he said in a whisper, “Just… touch me.”

Kurt didn’t have to ask for more, for that was already enough for Dave to give in. Whatever that alchemist had done before was clearly having some effects on him too. He grabbed Kurt’s shirt and pulled at it, tearing it out of his pants and finally sliding his hands under the silky fabric to caress Kurt up and down his back. “There’s… there’s not enough space,” he complained, trying to kiss Kurt down his neck and frustratingly fighting against the rigid collar of his jacket, still in the way.

Kurt took it off, freeing himself of it. “Don’t worry,” he muttered confusedly, moving slowly but strongly on Dave, “I’m going to stay on top of you, just like this,” he reassured his husband, searching for his lips.

Dave shivered badly at the mere idea, holding him close and kissing him hungrily. “Come here,” he whispered on Kurt’s lips, unbuttoning his shirt and pulling at it when he felt like the buttons weren’t opening fast enough.

Kurt let himself free to moan in pleasure as he gave in to every kiss and let Dave undress him. He offered himself to his husband as he started covering Kurt’s chest in sweet and barely wet kisses, hands unconsciously running to the hem of Kurt’s pants, pulling at them too.

“Take them off,” Kurt murmured, half-standing up on his knees to help him comply.

Dave nodded, lost in Kurt’s warmth and in the sweet smell of his skin. He unbuttoned Kurt’s pants and pulled them down his milk-white thighs, instantly stroking his buttocks with his hands once the pants were not in the way anymore. He squeezed hard, feeling himself growing more excited at the mere sound of Kurt’s whiny voice. “I want you,” he growled on Kurt’s skin.

Kurt answered fumbling frantically with Dave’s belt. “Then take me,” he said, kissing him deeply, “Dave, please. I can’t wait any longer.”

“Yes,” Dave answered in a moan, moving quickly against Kurt, “I just need to get you ready, first.”

Kurt nodded, staring at Dave with eyes filled with desperate need as he slickened his fingers and then let them slide down Kurt’s back, aiming for his opening. He barely had time to ask himself if that was the right way to reach their goal, if it was going to work having sex as they always did even if Kurt’s body had changed, but then the need he felt to be inside Kurt as soon as possible, and possible even sooner than that, couldn’t lie. He decided to follow his instinct, for that was the way children had always been conceived, and their child, despite it all, couldn’t be any different.

He kisses Kurt again, distracting him as he pushed two fingers inside him, thrusting carefully. Kurt moaned softly, hiding his face against Dave’s neck, sucking at his skin as he moved accordingly to take them in as much as he could. Which was way more than he usually could.

Dave instantly felt something was different from every other time they had had sex. They weren’t used to do it a lot anymore, so Kurt’s body usually responded very shyly and stiffly to Dave’s fingers, while now it just seemed to suck them in completely, and Kurt kept moving up and down like all he needed was more of that.

Dave growled and kept fingering Kurt, sliding a hand between their bodies to unbutton his own pants, taking his already hard cock out.

Kurt kissed him all over and then withdrew, biting at his lips somehow teasingly. “Dave, it’s alright,” he whined, moving on Dave’s fingers, “I’m ready, I feel it. Please.”

Dave nodded, feeling it too. He knew his husband’s body enough to know when he was ready and when he wasn’t, and Kurt definitely was. Ready, and hungry for more. He pulled his fingers out of Kurt’s body, guiding his cock to brush against Kurt’s opening and then circling Kurt’s hips with his hands to keep him still. He was waiting for the right moment to break him open and thrust into him, but the carriage bumped, Kurt lost his balance and he fell on Dave’s lap, taking him in completely with a little scream.

“Ouch…” he whined, trying to stand on his knees again. When he managed to, he gave in to a little chuckle, brushing the tip of his nose against Dave’s. “Well, that saved us time, at least,” he commented with an amused smirk.

“I’m sorry,” Dave said, speaking in a low, almost embarrassed voice. He had never done such a thing with Kurt, and Kurt had always been very shy on the whole sex matter, so he was very worried about making him feel uncomfortable or displeased, but every worry was instantly brushed away by how good and hot and surprisingly welcoming Kurt’s body felt.

Dave started moving slowly, his pace getting faster and faster with every second, and Kurt answered moaning happily, his voice getting higher and his screams getting louder with each and every thrust. He usually was way quieter than this, but somehow nothing seemed to count anymore in that moment. He placed his hands on the back of the seat, behind Dave’s head, to keep himself steady as he started moving forcefully over him, following his pace.

“Kurt…” Dave called him softly, scared that the driver could hear them and stop the carriage. Kurt lowered his gaze, trying to focus on his husband’s face, and instead of asking Kurt to be quieter, since he got the feeling that was really something Kurt had no power on, caught up as he was in the moment and in what they were doing, Dave kissed him deeper, as he started to push faster inside of him.

Kurt understood, and buried his voice between Dave’s lips, struggling not to make too much noise though he was feeling so good he just needed to scream his heart out.

Dave kept his lips locked with Kurt’s and held his husband’s hips tightly, moving against him so to push deeper and deeper inside his body. Between the waves of pleasure that shook his whole body and the blind worry that they could be found doing something so inappropriate in their carriage, the only thing his mind seemed to be able to focus on was that he wanted to reach as deep as he could inside of Kurt’s body, so he could bury a part of himself there, and give Kurt what he wanted the most.

He parted from Kurt’s lips only to tell him that he loved him, as he slipped a hand between Kurt’s thighs to stroke him.

“I love you too,” Kurt answered, kissing him one more time before letting himself go to Dave ministrations, moving in his hand following his pace, feeling his climax quickly approaching.

Dave dared to move faster and harder, holding Kurt with a hand on his back to both keep him close and help himself to angle his own thrusts better. Not only he could feel his own climax approaching, but he was sure Kurt was there already too. He smiled, feeling deeply connected to his husband, like he almost never felt before.

Kurt kept moving over him, fighting the need to be vocal, taking off some steam by biting and kissing Dave’s neck, leaving dark marks on his skin. He kept doing it until he felt his body so shaken by pleasure that he couldn’t take it anymore, and then he shivered badly, moaning into his husband’s ear as Dave kept thrusting deeper, kissing alongside Kurt’s neck as he tightened his grip around Kurt’s cock, stroking it faster and stronger.

He only started to slow down when he finally came inside Kurt’s body, collapsing over his shoulder, panting harder. As Kurt came too, the effects of the drugs the alchemist gave him started to fade a bit. He calmed down, resting his forehead on the curve of Dave’s shoulder, his slow movement cradling him a little.

The only thing he could think about was whether or not they had made it. But he couldn’t know it yet. He just had to wait and see.