
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/826205.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Glee
  Relationship:
      Blaine_Anderson/Original_Character(s)
  Character:
      Blaine_Anderson, Original_Characters
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Historical, Lemon
  Series:
      Part 35 of Leoverse
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-06-01 Chapters: 1/? Words: 8499
****** Gradients of infection ******
by lisachan, Tabata
Summary
     June 1630. Leo is all alone in a city cursed with the plague. Blaine
     is a physician who's searching for a cure. What could possibly happen
     when the latter meets the other and finds out that Leo hasn't got
     sick despite everything?
Notes
     Gradients of infection is an AU of Broken Heart Syndrome, but set in
     1630's Europe, during a raging breakout of plague. Here, Leo is left
     alone when his whole family dies because of the epidemic, and Blaine
     is a physician with a ground-breaking theory about the disease, who
     travels the country with Cody and Sam, his two assistants, in order
     to find a cure for it.
     As the universal law that binds Leo and Blaine in every given
     universe states, they are bound to meet and, possibly, fall in love.
     This story is composed by a few installments and, as it happens for
     Broken Heart Syndrome, it will be updated as soon as possible but
     randomly, due to the attention our other projects might require now
     and then. ~ reviews will be cherished, criticisms are welcomed, but
     please be gentle.
The plague struck the city in the June of 1630 but Leo didn't know what was
going on until the house of his father fell a couple of months later. Before
then, all the bodies dragged out of the buildings and burned in the squares had
meant nothing to him but being forced to stay indoor and bear the horrible
stink that came up from the smoking piles.
Then the first of their servants caught it. She didn't show anybody the
pustules growing in number by the hour on her back, lest Leo's father threw her
in the streets like everybody else was doing with their servants in every other
noble house in the city. So, she kept quiet. Within few weeks, all the servants
were sick and it was a matter of time before the disease spread to the family
too. The first to die was Leo's mother, the plague finding her weak from the
pneumonia of the year before. Then went Leo's little sister Tana, and his uncle
with his wife. His father was last. When the signs of the disease started to
show on his chest and arms, he locked himself in his bedroom, hoping that the
plague wouldn't reach the last member of the family still alive. He wouldn't
let Leo inside and only speak to him through closed doors. So, when he died, he
was alone, and Leo was left on his own and on the run.
Leo's father had told him what was left of the family's fortune and where to
find it. His last order was to join the rest of the family out of the city, on
the hills but it was too late to do that. By the time Leo had reached the
town's walls, the gates were closed and the guards would not open them. Nobody
could go in or out by king's command. The city was considered lost and
condemned to die, eaten from the inside by the plague, that was spreading
faster and faster now that the livings were gathered so close together with the
dead.
The only help they got came from the nuns and friars that had always refused to
flee the city as the authorities had done. They would walk around the city,
bringing what little they could offer to the healthy people and comfort to the
dying ones; but the food was scarce and the water poisoned, so even their labor
was vain. The lazar house was quickly filling up, and of those who went inside,
only a few came out.
A few doctors had stayed in town, wanting to avoid the accusations of cowardice
from their colleagues, but they were mostly useless as they didn't know what
they were dealing with. They had no cure, only experimental solutions that at
best would kill the patient, putting him out of his misery.
People were scared and desperate, a combination that led to superstitions and
the strong conviction that the disease was either God's punishment or the
result of the action of plague-spreaders sent by the Devil himself. People were
looking suspiciously at each other and lynchings were often performed on
innocents accused to be greasing door handles with the epidemic.
That was the reason why Leo was running now.
He had entered what he thought was an abandoned house to search for food or
something to sell for bread in the only tavern still standing, and an old woman
had seen him rummaging in a wardrobe. She didn't give him the time to explain
and just called the others. If Leo had learned something in the past few weeks
was that a group of people that had been laying about in the streets for days
could easily recover and run as if they had demons at their heels to beat the
shit out of a man if they thought he was responsible for the plague. Leo had
seen it happen too many times already and he didn't want to be the victim this
time, so he propelled himself through the alleys as quickly as he could, trying
to avoid the corpses scattered around or the more dangerous infected people who
reached out for him.
People were screaming at him, calling to others as they passed by and providing
each other with sticks and clubs to use once they would catch him. Leo was
running out of options. He could keep going the way he was now, hoping that all
the noise the crowd was making wouldn't alarm the people that were standing in
the square he was heading to. But that was a miracle he couldn't really hope
for because the city was so silent lately that you could have heard a pin
falling, let alone a whole crowd screaming that there was a plague-spreader. So
he was left with only one thing to do, and that was entering the area where the
monatti stoked the corpses before burning them. There the infection was said to
be raging and there was no way to leave the place safely once you had entered
it.
But it was either die for sure by the hands of a furious crowd that had almost
caught him already, or take his chances and go beyond a long line of dead
bodies that could not harm him unless he touched them. He had been lucky enough
to stay healthy all this time, maybe his luck was to last a little longer.
Anyway, he had no time to think and he just entered the street where the stink
of death and disease was strong enough to make him want to puke. Unluckily for
him, the crowd chased after him, the desire of putting an end to the cause of
the plague stronger than their fear to catch it.
The street was lined up with corpses wrapped in rags and piled up one on the
other, sometimes in towers of three or four. Every now and then there was an
empty cart ready to be used. The monatti would pull it around the city, going
where there had been a death to take the body away. They were preceded by men
with bells on their shoes and belts, who warned people of the cart's arrival,
so that they could go out of the way both to make room and stay safe.
Avoiding the bodies wasn't as easy as Leo had thought, especially with the
angry mob at his back. He kept stumbling and he was often forced to stop and
look around to find a way out from a wall of dead people or carts blocking the
streets. He came across a couple of monatti, who looked at him in disbelief.
One of them cursed at him and called him crazy, while the other laughed and
told him to run as fast as he could. Leo knew the man thought him dead already
but his suggestion was sill valid.
He had just left them behind when he turned to see what the crowd was at and
tripped over a body he hadn't seen. It was a matter of seconds and he would
land on the rotting corpse or one of the many equally infective puddle in the
street. But he didn't. Someone caught him in mid air and dragged him in the
dark shadow of a sideways alley. He saw the crowd pass him by without seeing
him as the stranger kept a hand on his mouth to prevent him from screaming. As
soon as the crowd was gone, the hand was too.
When Leo looked up he found the unmistakable long beaked mask of a doctor. He
was a tall man with a long black robe and white gloves, his face completely
covered. The eye of the mask were big and rounded, but so dark Leo couldn't see
the man's eyes underneath. “Come with me,” the man said.
Leo frowned. He didn't think so. This man could dress like a doctor but he
didn't act like one. They didn't grab people from the streets and hide them
from angry mobs. Usually they were scared of strangers as everybody else. And
they didn't touch you, unless it was strictly necessary. “Thanks, but no. I
know my way out of here,” he nodded, trying to get away.
The man's grip on Leo's arm tightened. “Not a way out where they aren't waiting
for you,” the man said, pulling him along. “They have surrounded the area to
get you.”
“How do you know that?”
His long beak pointed at him as the the man turned to look in his direction. “I
saw them,” he said, quite obviously. “They seemed convinced you're spreading
the disease.”
“Well, I am not. I was just looking for food,” he answered, doing very little
to stop the man from dragging him around a labyrinth of little alleys he had
never seen before.
“In an abandoned house? Good luck with that.”
Leo frowned. “How did you know that?”
But the man didn't answer. He stopped at the end of the street and peeked
around the corner, keeping him behind himself. They were a few feet away from
the city's walls and there were two soldiers guarding them. Pressed against the
man's robe, Leo noticed that it didn't smell awful like those robes usually
did. It smelled cleaned and freshly washed with something that reminded him of
his mother cologne. “Now, listen to me” the man said, still watching the doors.
“How good are your acting skills?”
That was a strange question. “I don't know. Never acted in my life.”
“Well, try to be good, then,” the man said, offhandedly. “I need you to play a
part and I need them to believe you. So, as you see, the entire success of the
plan depends on you.”
“Great!” Leo said, sarcasm pouring out of his words like acid. “I'm so much
more motivated, now. Especially since I don't know who you are, what do you
want and where the hell are we going.”
The man suddenly realized that he had dragged him around without any
introduction on his part, and that seemed to upset him somehow. He pulled back
his mask, revealing his face. He was a man in his thirties, with black curly
hair and eyes of a golden shade of brown such as Leo had never seen before. “My
name's Blaine Anderson,” he said, showing that the light accent Leo had heard
wasn't because of the mask. “I am a physician.”
Leo looked closely at him one more time. “Leo,” he simply said.
Blaine nodded. “Leo, I can take you out of the city with me but we have to be
very careful.”
“Now, that's bullshit,” Leo said, almost happy to be finally able to declare
the man mad once and for all. “Nobody can leave the town. Believe me, I tried.
You can't get past those doors.”
“Unless,” Blaine corrected him, retrieving a piece of paper from an inside
pocket of his robe, “you have a special waiver of the Pope for medical research
and merits.”
Leo frowns, eying the parchment. “You have a Pope's waiver?”
Quickly, Blaine put the thing away. “Sort of. I have a very good fake one” he
precised “and it never failed me. My assistant made it. He is a wonderful
falsifier among other things. Now, listen to me. You are going to be my
trainee. Your task is to assist me in my daily work. In case they ask you, tell
them that you were with me even when I entered the city this morning. They just
don't remember it.”
“This is crazy. They will never believe me,” he protested.
“They will if you do,” Blaine said seriously. “Just act like my trainee and
leave the rest to me.”
There was no time for protesting any longer because Blaine pulled his mask back
down and pulled Leo's hood up, then he grabbed his arm again and dragged him
toward the doors. He approached the guards with long, sure strides and stopped
a few inches away from one of them, forcing him to take a step back. “Open the
doors, please.”
“I am sorry, sir. Nobody can enter or leave the city.”
“We can,” Blaine said. He showed them his fake waiver and as they checked its
veracity, he proceeded to stun them with words. “Actually, we arrived this
morning and you let us pass. My name is Blaine Anderson and I've been sent here
by the Holy Father himself to try and find a cure for this disease.”
“I remember you,” the other guard said, looking at them suspiciously. “But not
the kid.”
“You're probably experiencing some level of memory loss, because the kid was
indeed with me and he has been for almost three years now,” Blaine said
immediately while Leo at his side just held his breath. The worst that could
happen was to be sent back. But after being one step away from escaping, even
that seemed an awful punishment. “But don't worry, my friend, this is nothing
to worry about. Long, tedious hours guarding doors that don't do anything but
be closed would do that to anyone. A good night of sleep and everything will be
alright.”
The guard, actually worried for a possible mental illness causing him memory
loss, grumbled that he thought he remembered the kid now. “Is the waiver in
order?” He asked his colleague.
The other guard read the thing again, causing Leo to tense even more. The man
seemed to watch closely at some part of the parchment as if he wasn't convinced
with it, but it turned out he only had problems reading in general. “Yes. You
can go.”
When they opened the doors for them, Leo couldn't believe it.
By the time he managed to get his head around the idea of himself leaving the
city, they were halfway to Blaine's house.
*
 
 
The first thing they did was reach the house of Leo's relatives – despite
Blaine telling him that everyone in the area had died or moved – but when they
got there, they didn't find anyone. The house seemed abandoned. All the
furniture was covered with white sheets and all the precious things Leo's
relatives had owned were missing, but the house didn't look like it had been
robbed. They had just moved somewhere else, probably in another country all
together. So, alone and with no other places to go, Leo agreed to go with
Blaine.
Blaine lived in a beautiful big villa on the hills, like the one they had just
left. It had a beautiful garden around it that shined in all its glory even if
it was clear that nobody had had the time to take proper care of it. The access
to the property was through a gate almost completely covered in ivy and
surmounted by two stone lions that looked gravely upon them when they passed.
“So this is your house?” Leo asked as they walked on the path that led to the
villa. Trees and bushes were so overgrown that Leo kept looking around, sure
that there had to be real lions as well as stone ones in there.
“My family's, from my mother's side” Blaine answered, taking off his mask and
robe. “She used to live here when she was still a maiden.”
They crossed a little bridge – a miniature arch of wooden planks, like a toy
bridge in a country doll house – over a little river sprouting out of nowhere.
This part of the garden had to be extremely pretty in the past. “You don't
sound like someone who grew up around here,” Leo noticed.
“Because I didn't,” Blaine gave him a big relaxed smile. There had been
something different in him since the moment he had entered the property. “I was
born in Virginia.”
“Where is it?”
Blaine chuckled. “The New World,” he said.
“So why did you come here?”
Blaine chuckled again and ruffled his head, which was something Leo hated with
a passion. “To be someone I've just met, you surely ask a lot of questions.”
Leo wanted to remind Blaine that he had just invited him to live in his house,
which was a little bit more intimate than asking perfectly reasonable
questions, but he didn't have the time because, when they were about to reach
the villa, they were approached by a black haired kid about his age who threw
himself in Blaine's arms before doing anything else, included greeting them.
And then he proceeded to scold Blaine so badly that even Leo felt a little
sorry for him.
“Are you out of your mind?” He screamed as his puffy cheeks turned red out of
rage and anger. “You said three hours, Blaine! Three hours. And you've been
gone all day!”
“I know, pet, I know.” Blaine spoke soothingly but he really looked sorry for
having upset this kid so much. “I did wanted to come back on time, but nothing
went as planned and I had to improvise.”
“I don't even know what your plans were,” the kid sighed in resignation.
Apparently, his anger came only from his concern for Blaine. So, once he saw
the man was well, he calmed down.
Blaine let out an amused little laugh. Leo expected him to ruffle the kid's
hair too, but he didn't. “I didn't know what they were either, actually” he
said. “By the time I figured them out, it was already late. I'm really sorry,
pet. It won't happen again, I promise.”
The kid frowned at him, as if he didn't believe him. “Right, 'cause you usually
keep promises like these,” he said in fact. Then he sighed, relaxing. “Never
mind. The important thing is that you're here safe and sound.”
“Right,” Blaine nodded. “Now, Cody, this is Leo. Leo, this is Cody.”
Cody – who apparently had a real name and wasn't called pet like Leo was
starting to think – turned to him for the first time and looked as if he had
only noticed him now. The expression on his face was unreadable and Leo
couldn't say if he was fine or annoyed with his presence but, if he had to
guess, he would have said the latter. Leo quickly waved at him, feeling a
little awkward. Cody just gave him a nod and then turned back to Blaine, not
actually asking anything to him but still managing to demand an explanation by
the mere look in his eyes.
Which Blaine promptly avoided. He gave Cody his robe and mask with an elusive
smile. “Please, dispose of these,” he said, gently. “And would you take care of
Leo? He's gonna stay with us.”
“What?” The two kids said in unison, even if for two different reasons. What
Blaine had just said was so incredibly weird for both of them, that they didn't
even turn to look at each other in surprise for the twin outbursts.
Blaine ignored them all together. “He needs a bath and food,” he said as he
climbed the stairs, already heading inside. “Oh! And check for any sign of the
disease. You know how to do it, right?”
Cody's baby face just seemed to melt in annoyance and frustration. “Blaine, are
you kidding me? I've still tons of other things to do!”
Blaine didn't stop to answer to him. “I'm sure you'll manage everything as you
always do,” he said over his shoulder. “Leo, come to me when you've done. Cody
will tell you where my lab is.”
For a few moments after Blaine had closed the entrance door behind himself, Leo
and Cody just stood there in silence, Cody still watching the door in disbelief
and Leo not knowing exactly what he should have done now, or even what was
expecting him.
“Right!” Cody turned suddenly with a clap of his hands. He tried to make it
look like what just happened was no big deal, but he made a poor job of it.
“Come with me. It's gonna take a while with you.”
“Hey! What is this even supposed to mean?”
Cody, as his master, didn't answer. He just led the way around the house,
bringing him to a backdoor. Once inside, they walked through a narrow hallway
and climbed down an even more narrow staircase to what looked liked a very
spacious bathroom in the basement. Four little windows at ground level let the
sunlight in and a line of oil lamps hanging from a rope on the ceiling gave the
room all the light it needed. There was a bathtub right in the center and a
coal-burning stove on the side, with several buckets filled with water resting
on it. Cody threw Blaine's robe in the stove and put the beaked mask on a
shelf. Then he grabbed the buckets with a rag, to avoid burning himself, and
emptied them in the bathtub one by one.
“Take off your clothes, please” he said.
Leo frowned. “What? No!” He exclaimed outraged, crossing his arms on his chest.
“Not until you leave the room.”
Cody seemed unaffected by this. “I'm supposed to give you a bath,” he just
said.
“I can bathe myself, thank you.”
Cody tried the water in the bathtub as he would have done for a child, then he
sighed and stood up, facing him. “No, you can't” He said. “I need to check you
for signs of the plague. So, take off your clothes, please.”
“I know what the plague looks like!” Leo protested. “My whole family died
because of it.”
Cody's patience seemed to run really short on this one, if the frown on his
forehead deepening by the second was of any indication. “I won't look for the
signs of the disease when it's already spreading, but for the ones that
forecast it.”
“Which ones are they?”
Cody nodded. “Exactly. I know them, you don't. So, would you take off your
clothes, please?” He asked again, this time barely containing his annoyance. “I
assure you, you have nothing I haven't seen before. God, you're worse than a
girl!”
Leo glared at him. It was weird to hear that coming from a boy who was way more
effeminate than him. And that was saying something, considering that Leo was
very small and slim for his age. Still, Cody was really petite and elegant,
with delicate and feminine features, as if he had never hit puberty. It didn't
even cross Leo's mind that Cody could be referring to his mien and not to his
appearance. It had been only logical to him to hide his body from the eyes of
other people, especially stranger. He had never undressed in front of someone
else before.
However, he did now because it looked like Cody would do it for him if he
didn't obey. Once he was naked and covering himself miserably, Cody took his
clothes without a second glance to him and threw them too in the stove. “Hey!”
Leo cried out. “Those were the only one I had!”
“We will give you others,” Cody assured him. “Now get in the tub, please.”
Leo complied, also because standing there naked wouldn't have been any better.
The water temperature was perfect, which surprised him, because Cody clearly
hated him and trying to boil him alive or making him freeze wouldn't have been
so strange on his part. Once he was fully immersed, he let out a moan of real
pleasure. He hadn't realized how long he had done without a bath. Now he
understood how dirty he was, how tensed, how much he needed it. “God, this is
heaven.”
Cody knelt beside the tub and started to gently sponge his back and arms,
carefully checking the tone and color of his skin as Blaine had taught him.
“When was the last time you ate?” He asked.
“I don't remember exactly,” Leo answered. “Maybe it was five or six days ago. A
nun gave me a piece of bread.”
Cody lifted one arm and gently palpated his armpit. “Did you lose a lot of
weight?”
Leo shrugged. “Not that much, considering I haven't been eating enough,” he
answered. “I've seen sick people losing way more than me. What are you doing?”
Cody shushed him and walked around the bathtub to wash and check his other arm.
He stayed silent for the longest time, cleaning him carefully and even washing
his hair twice. When he spoke again, his voice was lower and somehow troubled.
“How did he find you?”
“I was running from an angry mob. They thought I was a plague-spreader,” he
chuckles. “He hid me.”
Cody put the sponge away. “And you didn't know him?”
Leo shook his head. “Nope. Never seen him before.”
Cody's face remained dark as it was, but he nodded and smiled somehow gently at
him. “Now get out of the water,” he said, giving him a towel. “I'll get your
clothes.”
He left the room and came back five minutes later with a new pair of black
breeches and a white tunic that were probably his own. “Here, for now you can
wear these,” he said, passing them to him. “If you're really gonna stay with
us, we're gonna buy some new clothes for you.”
Then, he barely waited for him to be fully dressed and told Leo to follow him
again, leading him upstairs. He didn't show him the house at all. He walked
fast, urging him to hurry up, until they reached a room at the farthest end of
an awfully dark corridor. “This is your room,” he announced, opening the door
for him. “If you need anything, you will find us downstairs. Blaine's lab is on
the second floor, right next to the stairs. I suggest you to join him in a
little while. Dinner will be served in two hours. Until then, I left you bread,
cheese and some fruit in your room.”
Then he walked away. Just like that. Not really giving Leo time to say
anything.
His thank you - if he was ever prone to say it – remained unspoken.
*
Blaine's lab was not the crammed little space some other doctors had, but a
spacious room with a big table in the center and shelves on the walls to keep
everything in order. Cody would always see to that. The lab was cleaned twice a
day – more if Blaine's experiments happened to be too messy – and Cody was
always there at the end of the day to put everything back to his place, since
he knew Blaine wouldn't do that more often than not.
Today was no different. Even if Blaine had been away all day, he had still had
enough time since he came back to make a mess. So, when Cody walked in the room
and found everything scattered around, papers everywhere and tons of recently
filled phials that he was going to either clean or label later, he wasn't even
remotely surprised. He just closed the door behind himself with a sigh.
“You couldn't just call it a day, could you?” He asked, picking up notes from
the floor.
“I had to write something down, but I couldn't find the right journal,” he
explained, looking very closely at the liquid inside a phial that he was
holding up in the air. “So obviously I had to check them all.”
“You could have asked.”
Blaine corked the phial and put it together with a bunch of others, all
containing a different colored liquid. “You were busy taking care of our
guest,” Blaine said, quickly moving around the room as he was used to do. He
was always doing two or three things at once. It looked like he couldn't bear
to have a single moment of idleness when he worked. “I didn't want to bother
you with my disorganization.”
Cody clacked his tongue. “Oh the irony!” He said, wondering if Blaine realized
that his mere presence bothered him with his disorganization every single day.
This Leo guy was simply the last proof of it.
That caught Blaine's attention. He finally stopped swirling around and looked
up at him, frowning. “What is that supposed to mean, now?”
Cody crossed his arms to his chest. “I don't know, you tell me.”
Cody had never been the passive-aggressive type, so Blaine instantly got that
something was wrong, and above all what it was. Anyway, knowing what the
situation was didn't mean he knew how to handle it, so he did the only thing he
was sure was going to work. He walked to Cody and grabbed him by his hips,
pulling him closer. Then, he started kissing him along his neck, slipping his
long fingers under Cody's tunic.
“Don't you even dare,” Cody threatened him, slapping his hand away.
“But I missed you!” Blaine looked at him with the perfect puppy eyes, but it
was useless. Cody looked very dangerous, his clear blue eyes were a darker
shade of anger.
“I said, don't you even dare.”
Blaine let him go, but he didn't step away. “You weren't so mean a few months
ago,” he whined, massaging his hand in place of the hurt pride that he couldn't
cuddle.
“I wouldn't have needed an explanation a few months ago,” Cody replied, his
arms still firmly crossed to his chest, denying Blaine all kind of access
preemptively. “Now, I do. And I don't reckon this is too much to ask.”
Blaine sighed, realizing there was no way out of it. “Well... He seemed fit,”
he said.
Even the way Cody slowly raised his eyebrow was threatening. “Fit,” he
repeated, dryly.
“For the experiments!” Blaine quickly added. “He is fit for the experiments.”
Cody didn't seem convinced at all. “Yeah. Sure,” he nodded, even more dryly.
Blaine thought that that was a pretty good explanation, but evidently it was
not. Then, finally, sudden realization came and Cody could see it dawning in
his dumb, unaware eyes. “Wait! Do you think I like him?” He asked with a
nervous laugh. “Come on Cody. I don't even know him!"
“Yeah, 'cause you actually need to know people to like them, do you?” Cody
replied, growing more and more annoyed with Blaine's every word. “You put your
hands on me two weeks after we first met!"
"Well... Well, that was different!” Blaine said. He grabbed his arms, forcing
Cody to uncross them, and pulled him to his chest. “You are you. It's a totally
different matter. Can I have a kiss now?”
“No, you can't!” Cody pulled his hands away, closing both his fists in anger.
“And you, Blaine Anderson, are unbelievable. How dare you try and win me over
with some random romantic bullshit after you just brought a stranger you're all
head over heels for into our home?"
"I am not... “ Blaine sighed, tiredly. “Cody, he's been alone in the city for
at least three weeks. I saw him twice, two different time and places. He was
wearing the same clothes both times and he had lost weight. Yet, he is not
sick.”
The way Blaine was looking at him was clearly telling Cody that all those
information were important, and he knew they were. Usually people got ill in
two weeks top, less if they couldn't wash themselves or their clothes. Leo was
the dirtiest thing Cody had ever seen in a while, and yet he didn't have any
sign of the epidemic, which was a good sign for Blaine's research. And Cody
knew Blaine cared for his research more than he cared for random fucks, which
was saying something. “Yeah,” he sighed, finally giving up the pout. “So those
gorgeous sky blue eyes and his wild black curls are in no way involved in your
decision to bring him here?"
“Does he have sky blue eyes and wild black curls under the dirt?” Blaine asked,
playfully. “I hadn't noticed that.”
Cody glared at him so bad that he was almost comical. “Blaine...”
“I hadn't! I swear! Besides,” he chuckled, not believing Cody to be seriously
angry, “I already have my black haired beauty in the house.”
Cody put his hands on his hips. “Oh, really. And who would that be? Do I know
him?”
Blaine smiled, amused. There was a time, a year before, when Cody would never
play like this. So, seeing him doing that made Blaine extremely happy. “I don't
know, maybe. He is a gorgeous boy, seventeen years old next week, best painter
I've ever known and I'd be lost if it wasn't for him. Any idea of who he might
be?”
Cody pretended to be thinking about this mysterious brunette beauty hanging
around the house. He pushed one of his hips out in an even more girly pose of
himself and tapped his bottom lip with his index finger, pensively. “Mmmh, I
don't know,” he eventually said, shaking his head. “Nobody comes to mind.”
“Really? Last time I checked, there was only one painter in this house,” Blaine
chuckled as he tried again to slip a hand under Cody's t-shirt. “Did you
multiply when I wasn't looking?”
Cody giggled happily, but he slapped his hands anyway and he moved away too.
“You'd surely like that, wouldn't you? Maybe that's why you brought the new kid
in!”
Blaine rolled his eyes. “Again? If you keep saying that, I'll start thinking
you are the one who likes him.”
Cody made a face, pretending with himself more than Blaine that he hadn't
looked at the new kid twice. But he had, so the comment hit home a little bit.
That's why he stirred the conversation on Blaine again. “I bet you thought
about that too. I can totally see you picturing us making out for your
pleasure.”
Blaine became suddenly still as his eyes fixed on something that was only in
his head. Just for one blissful second his lab disappeared to leave him in his
bedroom, looking at Cody making out with another kid. He hadn't seen Leo clean
yet, so the other kid on the bed had some generic features resembling those of
Leo, but the perfect picture of the two of them naked exploring each other body
did the trick anyway. Actually, it was good enough to make Blaine swallow in
discomfort. “Now, that's not fair.”
Cody slapped him on his chest, outraged. “You thought about it!” He slapped him
again. “You actually just thought about it, right in front of me!
“Stop it!” Blaine whined and laughed at the same time, wrapping him in his arms
to make him stop. “You were beautiful in my head!”
“Should that justify you in any way?” Cody slapped him again as he tried to
wriggle out of his embrace, but not really managing because he was light as a
feather and outrageously small.
Blaine couldn't stop chuckling. Cody was always incredibly beautiful, but he
was never so stunning to look at as when he was mad. Anger made his beautiful
porcelain face fierce and a pout just stressed how much puffy and rounded his
face could still be despite his age, and these two characteristics just made
him irresistible for Blaine. “Yes!” He answered, in fact as he kissed his
cheek. “Because I always picture you, anyway. You're always there in my head.”
“I'm always naked and doing inappropriate things in your head!” Cody protested,
trying unconvincingly to push him away. “Come on, stop it!
“Because you do inappropriate things very well.”
Once turned on, Blaine rarely could be stopped. Mainly because he didn't even
try to control himself when he had toyed with the idea of having sex. It was
like lighting up a fuse, the sparkle would always run to the explosive way much
faster than you. And it was clear to both of them that Blaine's fuse had been
burning for minutes now by the way his voice lowered and his kisses had move
from Cody's cheek to his neck.
“I do not!” Cody said, tilting his head to try and reduce Blaine's space of
action. But his denial was way less effective since he was already caressing
Blaine's arms more than pushing them away.
Blaine nodded, slowly. “I clearly remember you doing very inappropriate things
on my bed yesterday,” he insisted, going back to kiss him on his cheeks and
lips. “But I may be wrong. I say we should check if you really can do them,
now.”
“You can't possibly want to check now! I still have to go and take care of
dinner, and set the rooms for tonight, and prepare for tomorrow's breakfast and
clean up the lab...”
Blaine had long stopped listening to his pointless protests. “Actually, I do,”
he repeated as he picked him up and moved away with one arm everything that was
on the table, so he could place Cody on it. “Everything else can wait, pet.”
Cody squealed a little as he landed on the table. “Blaine, I didn't even lock
the door! What are you even thinking?” He protested, closing his legs to make
himself clearer. Apparently this wasn't enough to stop Blaine, who was all over
him anyway. “Somebody could see us.”
“Who?” Blaine asked as he started unbuttoning Cody's tunic without permission.
Cody, still chuckling between his protests, allowed him to do so. “With the
sounds you're making, Sam will know better than entering here.”
“I'm not making any sound!” Cody said outraged, and actually moaning. “Besides,
we did it already, today! I was half asleep, but it still counts.”
At this point, Blaine was totally unaffected by Cody's slapping, pushing or
weakly protesting, especially because he knew they weren't real. “Yes, and you
were so totally cute... “ he confirmed, murmuring in his ear. “But it still
counts as only one and I want you again.”
Cody sighed affectionately, as his hands finally stopped pushing and slipped
underneath Blaine's jacket, reaching inside to tug at his waistcoat and at the
shirt underneath. “Aren't you even tired? You've been out running around the
city between corpses forever!”
“I don't actually run,” Blaine smiled, feeling him relaxing under his caresses.
“I'm a slow walking man who peacefully stroll between patients and bodies.”
Cody rubbed the tip of his nose against Blaine's jaw, watching him closely. “So
you didn't get tired saving that kid's life and all? I can totally picture you
play prince charming as you hide him under your coat.”
Looking like a kid that never really hit puberty – let alone grew out of it –
Cody was indecently beautiful. Blaine knew that that should have made him
thinking, but since he only liked Cody and not every kid in general, he
ascribed his desire for someone nearly twenty years younger than him to Cody
alone. And currently lost in said desire, Blaine really didn't get what was
going on with Cody's fixation with their guest but he played along. “I didn't
hide him in my coat,” he explained, letting Cody's shirt sliding off his tiny
shoulders.
“Didn't you?” Cody asked, biting the man's jaw. “But he had the smell of your
cologne on his skin.”
“How do you know that?” He asked amiably as he slipped a hand in his pants and
cupped his butt. “I only pressed him against myself to keep him from running
away in front of the city guards.”
Cody moaned a little bit, surprisingly finding himself more aroused already
than what he had thought himself to be. Now the open door was only a distant
concern he was not sure he really had. “I had to clean him up, remember? You
asked me to,” he answered, slowly parting his legs. “I'm jealous.”
Blaine had never heard this word coming out from Cody's mouth before, but he
thought it to be quite predictable, if not justified, after he had brought home
a kid his age. It had to have something to do with some sort of territoriality.
Hopefully, it was cuter than dangerous. “Jealous?” He asked sweetly, as he
teased him between his buttocks. “You shouldn't be. I plan on doing way more
than press you against me.”
Cody moaned a little louder, lost between his need to let himself go to
Blaine's ministrations and to be reassured about Leo. “But you like him,” he
insisted as he closed his hands around the fabric of Blaine's shirt and lifted
his hips from the table to help him take off his pants.
“Maybe he is cute under all that dirt,” Blaine conceded. “But I don't like
anyone as I like you.”
Cody looked at him, pouting. “I hate you so much, really.”
Blaine leaned down to kiss his chest and belly as he strokes his open legs.
“Why now?” He asked, just barely looking up.
Cody sighed and caressed Blaine's cheek, rubbing his knees against his sides.
“Because I love you too much,” he said with a little chuckle. “And because
you're wearing too many clothes.”
“That's something that can be easily fixed,” Blaine smirked as he stripped,
looking Cody in the eyes. But when he went back kissing him and he reached down
to resume touching him too, the position wasn't very good, so he had to fix
that too. He made Cody slide all the way down toward himself, until his naked
ass slammed against his crotch. ”Now, that's better.”
Cody squealed again, only louder, and he grabbed the edge of the table, scared
to fall down even if he knew Blaine wouldn't let him. “God, you're so rude!” He
protested, biting Blaine's bottom lip. His perpetual complaining nullified by
the lust filled noise he was making.
“I'm not rude, pet, I'm rough,” Blaine precised, and as if to make a point, he
inserted two fingers in him, knowing both Cody could take them and they needed
to speed everything up since he was dying to be inside him and Cody had been
teased enough.
Cody moaned loudly, closing instinctively around them. Since Cody was generally
so small, Blaine's fingers alone were cumbersome and extremely intrusive,
especially when they didn't waste too much time in foreplay. “Blaine! Slowly...
“ he whined, but still met those fingers with his hips. “This is not... you
shouldn't with your fingers... It's dirty!”
“Do you like it?” Blaine asked, looking up from his neck. Cody's cheeks turned
a brighter shade of pink because he did like it, no matter how dirty it still
looked to him, and he could never lie to him. So he nodded and Blaine smiled,
leaving a tender kiss on his forehead. “Then it's not dirty.”
After that, Blaine pulled his fingers out and, following a request that had not
been made by either of them but could be read on both their bodies, he slipped
his cock inside, tearing out a proper yell from Cody's throat.
The boy crossed his legs behind Blaine's back, calling his name and telling him
things that only made his thrusts stronger, deeper and rougher as the lab,
drowning in the shadows of the upcoming night, was filled with their moans.
*
Apparently, Blaine and Leo weren't the only people living in the house. While
Leo was coming down for dinner, as Cody had told him, he came across a tall
blond woman who responded to the name of Sam, and who squeaking welcomed his
presence with a – frankly quite strong – bear hug, insisting on walking him to
dinner. She told him that she was Blaine's colleague, more of a lab assistant
than a real physician though, which made Leo wonder how many assistants Blaine
had exactly, and what the word really meant to him.
In fact, Leo had had the unfortunate experience of choosing the wrong moment to
show up at Blaine's lab half an hour ago, and saw Blaine and Cody together. He
had gone away before they could see him, but he had seen them nonetheless. And
not only the sight upset him in ways he couldn't – or didn't want to – explain
to himself right now but it also made impossible for him to look at either of
them now that they were both sitting at the table with him, let alone the fact
that sodomy was illegal and punished with death.
Dinner was served in a big old room of the first floor, where the kitchen was
too. As Sam was explaining to him right now, about thirty people lived in the
villa when Blaine's family was still alive, but it was too big for just the
three of them now, and only a few rooms were used.
“And they are enough mess to clean for me alone to add another room,” Cody
said, not so casually glaring at him.
Blaine put a hand on Cody's. “You do a wonderful job, pet,” he smiled. “We
would all be lost without you.”
Sam frowned, looking at Leo blushing face. It was so obvious that he was
feeling awkward that she couldn't let it go. “Are you okay, Leo?” She asked.
“You seemed flushed.”
Leo turned even redder. “No, I am fine, thanks,” he quickly said. “I'm just
wondering why exactly I'm here.”
“Then it makes two of us,” Cody chipped in.
Leo coughed. “I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that you got me out of
the city and all, but it seems strange that you would go around infected cities
to pick up perfect strangers and bring them to live in your home, don't you
think?”
“Actually, that's exactly what he does,” Sam chuckled, amused. “Isn't it
funny?”
Leo blinked a couple of times and the news even brought him to look up,
forgetting for a moment what he had seen in the lab. “So you were all--”
“We were all sick,” Cody precised. “Blaine caught it on the vessel that was
bringing him back here from one of his journeys.”
“You could say he actually brought here the plague,” Sam mocked him. Blaine
childishly threw her a piece of bread.
“He was brought to the same leper hospital I was in,” Cody continued,
apparently oblivious to the bread war that was taking place across the table.
He was taking some sort of pleasure in telling Leo how long back his history
went with Blaine. “And we both recovered from it by ourselves.”
“So, when we were on our feet again, I started making experiments on our
blood,” Blaine explained. “I was convinced that it contained something that had
fought the disease and won it.”
“On blood? Isn't it something about the air?” Leo asked, confused. Cody laughed
so mockingly that Leo felt instantly stupid and looked down. “At least that's
what they said.”
Blaine looked at him tenderly, which actually brought Cody to pout a little
bit. “Yes, and they are wrong. Some oriental physicians think that it's a blood
infection caused by fleas, and I'm prone to believe this is correct.”
“Fleas?”
“Yes. Rats carry them everywhere. And there are rats on ships, so the plague
can spread very fast,” Blaine explained.
“That's why we burn clothes, so the fleas die,” Cody added.
“So,” Blaine carried on, “I tried to mix parts of Cody's blood and mine to a
formulation that in oriental medicine is used to cure similar blood infections,
but it didn't work. Apparently, when you recover from the plague you're only
able to avoid getting sick again. Whatever there is in your blood, it protects
you and you alone.”
“And that's when I come in,” Sam barged in. “They were traveling a lot more one
year ago, looking for some special place or person that could help the
research, and they obviously found me.”
“And you were sick too,” Leo nodded.
“Sort of,” Blaine said. “She had it, but it was a different kind of what we
had. She was experiencing fever, weight loss, pale complexion, everything but
the pustules. It was like she was at some first stage of the epidemic and it
would never get worse than that. I waited to see if she recovered and, when she
did, I tried to use her blood too, but it was useless.”
“Apparently, I recovered from it and I can't never get it again,” Sam shrugged.
“But I can still give it to others. Don't ask me how.”
“We don't know how that works yet,” Blaine confirmed. “Anyway, she came to live
with us and I continued my research for a suitable blood donor.”
“Which would be you, by the way” Cody said, with a little bit of acid in his
voice. “You're basically a lab sample.”
“Me?”
Blaine beamed. “Yes!” He said, excitedly. “You didn't catch the plague in three
weeks that you lived alone, malnourished, dirty and among sick people, so I'm
positively sure you never will.”
“What do you mean? That I'm immune to it?”
“Yes!” Blaine exclaimed again, even more excited. “That's what I'm hoping for.
So, if you really can't catch it, maybe your blood has what I'm looking for.”
Leo was even more confused than he was before. “So do you want to get my
blood?” He asked, a little scared, maybe.
“Just a little bit,” Blaine smiled. “It won't hurt too much, I promise.”
Leo nodded, hesitantly. “And then?”
Blaine shrugged. “Then we will see. If it works, it will be the greatest
discovery of all times,” he answered. “If not, we'll keep on searching and you
could even stay with us, if you want.”
“What?” Cody asked.
Blaine smiled at him too. “He doesn't have any other place to be, Cody. What
would you wanna do? Leave him in the streets?”
“Yes?”
Blaine leaned on him and kissed him tenderly on his cheek, making Leo blush
furiously. He got so agitated that his piece of bread slipped from his hands
twice before he could get hold of it. Sam chuckled, as she often seemed to do,
“Well, welcome home, Leo,” she said, smiling brightly at him. Then she leaned
in to speak to his ear. “I reckon by the color of your cheeks that you must
have seen something in the lab earlier. That's what you were peeking at, am I
right?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he whispered back, trying to act
casually and failing.
She chuckled again. “Yes, you do. But I won't insist,” she said. “Just know
that if there's something that you want to know, you can easily just ask.”
Then she went back to eat as if nothing had ever passed between them.
Leo didn't ask that day or the day after but Cody would go on and be really
loud in his appreciation of whatever Blaine was doing to him – which Leo would
never peek at again since his memory served him embarrassingly well enough –
and eventually, some day the question that was burning on his tongue right now
would come out and make Sam laugh some more.
In the meantime, he just agreed to stay and hoped he hadn't get himself into
bigger troubles than the plague was.
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