Where Wind and Water Meet - Chapter 3
Title: Where Wind and Water Meet
Artist: morph0fairy
Author: firefly_ca
Rating (art/fic if different): PG
Word Count: 24K
Warnings (if any): Major character death wrapped up in magic realism.
Fic Summary: Inspired by/loosely based on George MacDonald's At The Back of the North Wind. Blaine has never behaved the way normal children do and has always been too quiet and detached from the world around him. Everything changes the day he meets a strange boy named Kurt with the ability to change his appearance and who says he can control the wind. Blaine doesn't know why, but it feels like he's known Kurt forever. AU, but not totally detached from the Glee universe.
Chapter 3
Kurt tells Blaine that everything starts small, and he's right. It starts the night Kurt comes to the window and tells Blaine all about the oceans and asks if Blaine wants to go see it for himself.
"I want to see the water," Blaine says, slowly, because he loves the waves and the sounds they make. When his family went on vacation to the beach last summer, Blaine spent all his time sitting with his feet in the water, listening to the waves splashing.
"Then why do you look like you're going to say no?" Kurt asks.
"Can we go tomorrow?" Blaine asks, shyly. "I don't feel right tonight."
"What does that mean?" Kurt demands. "What do you mean, 'you don't feel right'?"
Blaine shrugs, a little helplessly.
"It feels like I'm moving," Blaine says, not sure how to explain. "I'm standing still but everything inside feels like it's falling. I don't think I want to fly tonight."
Kurt looks troubled but he nods almost right away.
"Then you should sleep tonight," he says, pulling away as he speaks, like he wants to leave quickly. He doesn't look angry though. He looks surprised and not surprised at the same time, the way Blaine's dad looked when he broke something in his shoulder and the doctors had to poke at it to ask where it hurt.
"Will you come show me tomorrow?" Blaine asks, calling out as Kurt moves backwards, further and further from him.
"I'll show you when you're ready to go," he says, looking at Blaine one last time with wide, serious eyes.
Blaine wants to be upset and a little scared, because Kurt has never looked at him like that before. He doesn't know what it means. But when he tries to set his mind to sorting out what's not being said out loud, he's too tired to hold the thoughts in his mind before they slip away again. Eventually he stumbles back to his bed on unsteady feet and throws himself onto it. He's forgotten what it was he was trying to think about by the time his head hits the pillow, and doesn't think another hard thought for a very long time.
Time starts to misbehave as he lies there, and so does the air in the room. Everything hits him too hot or too cold, changing faster than he can keep the blankets on or off his body. The dust in the air hits his skin so hard it feels like needles digging into him all over. Everything hurts. He wants to call to Kurt or his parents and ask them for help, but he can't make the words come out of his mouth, like his lips and throat won't work at the same time anymore. The only thing he can do is lie there, because he is so miserable and alone. At one point he looks outside and thinks he can see Kurt, looking in and watching him, with big white wings stretching out around him and a sad expression on his face, but then Blaine blinks or falls asleep, he's not sure which, and when his eyes open again there is no one.
Finally a brief moment and a lifetime later, a light is turned on just above him. Blaine tries to turn his head away, trying not to make a noise because it's so bright he can feel the light burning into his eyes, even after he's squeezed them tight.
"Someone's crabby this morning," comes Cooper's voice, floating atop the silence echoing in his ears, but never sinking far into his mind. "Come on, Blaine. Get up. You'll be late for school and if you are, you're gonna get it."
Blaine doesn't answer, just lies there.
"Blaine?" Cooper says, a question in his voice now, and Blaine hears him come closer to the bed. The air shifts around him as he walks, and the movement scrapes against Blaine's skin like sandpaper. "Are you okay?"
A finger cautiously pokes Blaine in the side and it feels like a knife is going in. Blaine does cry out now, cringing away from the contact. Cooper carefully sets a hand on Blaine's cheek before pulling it back suddenly like he's been burned. His footsteps fly out of the room and down the stairs, making a terrible racket as Blaine hears him shout,
"Mom? How do you tell when someone has a fever? Blaine's acting weird and he's really, really hot."
Things get even fuzzier after that. He briefly realizes his mother is staring down at him, trying to get him to answer questions as she puts her freezing cold wrists on his forehead and the back of his neck. His father's face swims in front of him once or twice, too, and he hears scared voices talking in words that don't sound quite like English anymore. Cold, wet cloths are pressed to his skin, making his teeth chatter until even his bones are shaking.
Soon there are strange faces floating in and out of his sight, too. People he doesn't remember and maybe has never even seen before all lean down and move their mouths at him, talking at him over and over, shaking at his shoulders and staring at him like they want him to say things. But even sound has disappeared now, and all that's left is the roaring of blood, boiling hot and tearing through his body. He wonders vaguely where all the other noises went.
When he realizes he's not in his bed anymore he has the idea that the change might have happened a long time ago and he's only just sorted out that it's happened. He wonders what it means when a person takes such a long time to notice such big changes. But maybe it's alright, because it's always taken Blaine a long time to notice big things. It's why his mother used to get so sad about him before Kurt came and woke him up. Maybe it's why she's crying now. He watches her cry her noiseless tears with glazed and unfocused eyes until she falls asleep, sitting in a chair beside him. He doesn't know where his dad and Cooper went. Maybe they're sick, too. Every now and then a stiff figure in white comes and hovers at the end of his bed, staring solemnly and holding charts. Blaine wonders if they're angels, and the thought makes him sad, because he always hoped angels would be friendlier and more interesting. He's always hoped they would be more like Kurt.
Blaine drifts, floating on hazy thoughts of wings and figures in white. He floats for days, or hours, or maybe minutes, and then someone is gently shaking his ankle by the foot of the bed. He forces his eyes to focus and it's Kurt, standing by his bed looking very uncomfortable, uncertain, like he's not used to being so far inside - or outside, for Kurt. He looks lost in the woods.
"I'm sick," Blaine says.
"You're ready," Kurt says.
"You have wings," Blaine comments, because even though he knows Kurt wants him to go with him, he's not feeling any great hurry to get up. He feels comfortable for the first time in ages - the aches have all left him.
Kurt looks over his shoulder to his wings in surprise, like he didn't know they were there before.
"Why did you give me wings?" He asks, curiously.
"Because you can fly," Blaine answers, like it's simple. "And because wings feel safe."
"I'm glad you like them," Kurt says, "but you need to come with me now."
"Are we going somewhere?" Blaine asks.
"We're going far away," Kurt says. "I have something I want to show you."
"Will we come back? Will I come back?"
Kurt stares at him hard for a minute before he finally admits,
"I don't know. People aren't allowed to come back from the places I take them, but you already do, all the time."
"What does the music say?" Blaine asks.
"It says something I've never heard it say before," Kurt says. "I know you need to come with me, but I don't know what will happen after. I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Blaine says, sitting up quickly, like he was never sick at all. "It's going to be like an adventure. I like adventures when I have them with you."
He lets Kurt help him get settled onto his back, and it's different to be held by feathers instead of clothes, but Blaine thinks he might like it.
"Are we going to see your country?" He asks.
"You are," Kurt confirms, moving quickly out of the room, like he doesn't like staying where he doesn't belong. Blaine glances behind them just once before they slide into a vent, and is surprised when he sees the shape of his old body, still filling the sheets on the bed.
***
"I can't take you the whole way," Kurt says apologetically, after they've been travelling long enough to start skimming over the top of water instead of land.
(click for link to higher quality) (alt link)
"Why not?" Blaine asks, surprised and a little upset, because this was a trip he only wanted to take with Kurt. "Do you have something else you have to do?"
"We need to fly around the world to get to the back of me," Kurt says. "The closer we get to the end, the heavier you get. I'm not strong when I'm close to my beginning. I'm like you were when you were a little baby. I'll be waiting for you there, and I'll carry you for as long as I can, but that very last part of the journey someone else will have to take you."
"Who will it be?" Blaine asks, a little worried.
"Just Finn," Kurt says, "He'll be passing me anyhow and he always helps when I ask him."
"He won't drop me, will he?" Blaine asks, uncertainly.
"He wouldn't dare," is all Kurt says, and Blaine thinks he might be smiling in that smug way he has when he thinks he's stronger than something. It's a smile Kurt wears a lot, but Blaine has noticed that smile usually means Kurt is right, so he's not very worried what feels like weeks later when Finn shows up.
Kurt has been getting closer and closer to the water, so tired sometimes Blaine thinks he can feel the sleepy ache move through Kurt's body into his. Kurt keeps the same shape he had in the strange room Blaine was taken away from, but Blaine thinks he might be doing that on purpose so he can stay at a size that lets him carry Blaine longer. They don't talk much now, because Kurt is too busy concentrating on moving forward. Blaine is a little scared that Kurt might die after he leaves and wants to go back home where Kurt will be safe, but Kurt promises.
"Winds don't die, Blaine. They start over. This part doesn't last forever."
So Blaine allows Finn to take him off of Kurt's back and settles onto this new wind's shoulder. Finn really is much stronger than Kurt is right now, and very broad. He makes Blaine think of giants and towers, but when he looks at Finn's face, all he sees is gentleness and uncertainty. He wonders if maybe Finn doesn't know how strong he is.
In a moment the uncertain face Finn is making is washed away, replaced by surprise as he glances first at Blaine and then back to Kurt.
"You weren't wrong," he says to Kurt, suddenly awkward and trying to cringe away from his own shoulder, like he's not sure he wants Blaine so close all of the sudden.
"Of course I wasn't wrong," Kurt snaps, but his voice is weak and small.
"Why are you taking him away?" Finn demands, and he sounds panicked and angry.
"I'm taking him because he asked to see the country," Kurt says between gritted teeth.
"But he doesn't - " Finn starts, but Kurt cuts him off.
"What else was I supposed to do?" He looks so upset, more upset than Blaine has ever seen him. "He was hurt. I couldn't let him stay."
"It's not our business if he's hurt," Finn insists, and Blaine just wants someone to tell him what's going on. He knows this fight is about him, but he doesn't know why.
"You don't know that," Kurt says, desperately. "The music changed, Finn. I know it doesn't make sense, but I promise I'm only doing what I was told. Just take him with you. Please?"
There's a tense silence and then Finn sags a little, bending to Kurt's demands even though he seems so much bigger right now. His shoulder is so wide, Blaine barely feels the motion at all.
"Thank you," Kurt says, and he flies on without another word.
Blaine frowns, because he didn't get a chance to say goodbye, but Finn sighs and says,
"Don't worry. You'll see him again soon. He has to do the last part alone."
"Oh," Blaine says, and they travel in silence, because Blaine doesn't know how to act around something so strong. He thinks Finn might not like him. After the quiet has gotten so loud Blaine thinks he can hear it talking, Finn says,
"You shouldn't be here right now. Has anyone told you you're not normal?"
"People think it," Blaine says, because there's no point in lying about it.
"They're thinking the right thing," Finn says. "Kurt's been keeping you away from the rest of us because he thinks if we'll tell you things that will scare you. We weren't even sure if you were real because we couldn't figure out where he kept you."
"Why would not belonging make me scared?" Blaine asks.
"Kurt thinks you're lost," Finn says. "Maybe you are or maybe you just left, but it's not right that he's treating you like you belong with the rest of them."
"The rest of who?" Blaine asks, completely bewildered. Finn doesn't make even half as much sense as Kurt does.
"Just remember that you're different," Finn says, ignoring the question. "And no matter how much you like the country, it's not your place to belong. You can't stop somewhere you don't fit."
They don't talk again for the rest of the journey. Blaine decides that he doesn't like Finn that much.
***
Kurt is sitting at the top of the world on a boulder made of ice, water lapping at his feet when Finn finally sets Blaine back down onto the ground and flies away with a sombre nod in their direction. Kurt is hunched in on himself and listless. He stares mostly at his feet or his tightly clasped hands, but when Blaine runs up and rests a hand on his knee, Kurt stares straight at him and smiles.
"Off you go," he says, softly.
"Why do you look so sad?" Blaine demands, because he could never leave when Kurt looks so lonely.
"I'm not sad," Kurt says. "I'm tired. I'm always tired here. This is where I go when I need to be still."
"So this is like sleeping for you?" Blaine asks, needing to be sure everything is alright before he leaves.
"Exactly," Kurt replies. "Go on ahead, Blaine. I promise I'm fine."
Satisfied, Blaine quickly squeezes Kurt's hand and runs around to Kurt's back, but there's nothing there.
"Is something supposed to happen?" He asks, cautiously. "Everything looks the same."
"Well, you didn't do anything," Kurt says, and he sounds like he would be laughing if he wasn't so still. "You can't just walk in. Most people ask for help before they can get inside."
"Finn says I'm not most people," Blaine says, a little sulkily, because he still doesn't think much of the South Wind.
"Never mind what Finn says," Kurt says, a little sterner than before. "Come back here and I'll make sure you get to the country."
Once Blaine is facing Kurt again, Kurt carefully reaches out his hands and lifts Blaine up. His arms are shaking, like it's taking everything he has to do something so small, but he doesn't drop Blaine as he softly sets Blaine down at his back, like he has so many other times. But it's not like the other times, Blaine realizes a second later, because he's not sitting in the folds of a shirt anymore, or even in a nest of feathers. He's standing in a place that he's never been before and he can't see Kurt at all. All around him is the country at the back of the North Wind.
To Chapter 2 | To Masterpost | To Chapter 4
Artist: morph0fairy
Author: firefly_ca
Rating (art/fic if different): PG
Word Count: 24K
Warnings (if any): Major character death wrapped up in magic realism.
Fic Summary: Inspired by/loosely based on George MacDonald's At The Back of the North Wind. Blaine has never behaved the way normal children do and has always been too quiet and detached from the world around him. Everything changes the day he meets a strange boy named Kurt with the ability to change his appearance and who says he can control the wind. Blaine doesn't know why, but it feels like he's known Kurt forever. AU, but not totally detached from the Glee universe.
Chapter 3
Kurt tells Blaine that everything starts small, and he's right. It starts the night Kurt comes to the window and tells Blaine all about the oceans and asks if Blaine wants to go see it for himself.
"I want to see the water," Blaine says, slowly, because he loves the waves and the sounds they make. When his family went on vacation to the beach last summer, Blaine spent all his time sitting with his feet in the water, listening to the waves splashing.
"Then why do you look like you're going to say no?" Kurt asks.
"Can we go tomorrow?" Blaine asks, shyly. "I don't feel right tonight."
"What does that mean?" Kurt demands. "What do you mean, 'you don't feel right'?"
Blaine shrugs, a little helplessly.
"It feels like I'm moving," Blaine says, not sure how to explain. "I'm standing still but everything inside feels like it's falling. I don't think I want to fly tonight."
Kurt looks troubled but he nods almost right away.
"Then you should sleep tonight," he says, pulling away as he speaks, like he wants to leave quickly. He doesn't look angry though. He looks surprised and not surprised at the same time, the way Blaine's dad looked when he broke something in his shoulder and the doctors had to poke at it to ask where it hurt.
"Will you come show me tomorrow?" Blaine asks, calling out as Kurt moves backwards, further and further from him.
"I'll show you when you're ready to go," he says, looking at Blaine one last time with wide, serious eyes.
Blaine wants to be upset and a little scared, because Kurt has never looked at him like that before. He doesn't know what it means. But when he tries to set his mind to sorting out what's not being said out loud, he's too tired to hold the thoughts in his mind before they slip away again. Eventually he stumbles back to his bed on unsteady feet and throws himself onto it. He's forgotten what it was he was trying to think about by the time his head hits the pillow, and doesn't think another hard thought for a very long time.
Time starts to misbehave as he lies there, and so does the air in the room. Everything hits him too hot or too cold, changing faster than he can keep the blankets on or off his body. The dust in the air hits his skin so hard it feels like needles digging into him all over. Everything hurts. He wants to call to Kurt or his parents and ask them for help, but he can't make the words come out of his mouth, like his lips and throat won't work at the same time anymore. The only thing he can do is lie there, because he is so miserable and alone. At one point he looks outside and thinks he can see Kurt, looking in and watching him, with big white wings stretching out around him and a sad expression on his face, but then Blaine blinks or falls asleep, he's not sure which, and when his eyes open again there is no one.
Finally a brief moment and a lifetime later, a light is turned on just above him. Blaine tries to turn his head away, trying not to make a noise because it's so bright he can feel the light burning into his eyes, even after he's squeezed them tight.
"Someone's crabby this morning," comes Cooper's voice, floating atop the silence echoing in his ears, but never sinking far into his mind. "Come on, Blaine. Get up. You'll be late for school and if you are, you're gonna get it."
Blaine doesn't answer, just lies there.
"Blaine?" Cooper says, a question in his voice now, and Blaine hears him come closer to the bed. The air shifts around him as he walks, and the movement scrapes against Blaine's skin like sandpaper. "Are you okay?"
A finger cautiously pokes Blaine in the side and it feels like a knife is going in. Blaine does cry out now, cringing away from the contact. Cooper carefully sets a hand on Blaine's cheek before pulling it back suddenly like he's been burned. His footsteps fly out of the room and down the stairs, making a terrible racket as Blaine hears him shout,
"Mom? How do you tell when someone has a fever? Blaine's acting weird and he's really, really hot."
Things get even fuzzier after that. He briefly realizes his mother is staring down at him, trying to get him to answer questions as she puts her freezing cold wrists on his forehead and the back of his neck. His father's face swims in front of him once or twice, too, and he hears scared voices talking in words that don't sound quite like English anymore. Cold, wet cloths are pressed to his skin, making his teeth chatter until even his bones are shaking.
Soon there are strange faces floating in and out of his sight, too. People he doesn't remember and maybe has never even seen before all lean down and move their mouths at him, talking at him over and over, shaking at his shoulders and staring at him like they want him to say things. But even sound has disappeared now, and all that's left is the roaring of blood, boiling hot and tearing through his body. He wonders vaguely where all the other noises went.
When he realizes he's not in his bed anymore he has the idea that the change might have happened a long time ago and he's only just sorted out that it's happened. He wonders what it means when a person takes such a long time to notice such big changes. But maybe it's alright, because it's always taken Blaine a long time to notice big things. It's why his mother used to get so sad about him before Kurt came and woke him up. Maybe it's why she's crying now. He watches her cry her noiseless tears with glazed and unfocused eyes until she falls asleep, sitting in a chair beside him. He doesn't know where his dad and Cooper went. Maybe they're sick, too. Every now and then a stiff figure in white comes and hovers at the end of his bed, staring solemnly and holding charts. Blaine wonders if they're angels, and the thought makes him sad, because he always hoped angels would be friendlier and more interesting. He's always hoped they would be more like Kurt.
Blaine drifts, floating on hazy thoughts of wings and figures in white. He floats for days, or hours, or maybe minutes, and then someone is gently shaking his ankle by the foot of the bed. He forces his eyes to focus and it's Kurt, standing by his bed looking very uncomfortable, uncertain, like he's not used to being so far inside - or outside, for Kurt. He looks lost in the woods.
"I'm sick," Blaine says.
"You're ready," Kurt says.
"You have wings," Blaine comments, because even though he knows Kurt wants him to go with him, he's not feeling any great hurry to get up. He feels comfortable for the first time in ages - the aches have all left him.
Kurt looks over his shoulder to his wings in surprise, like he didn't know they were there before.
"Why did you give me wings?" He asks, curiously.
"Because you can fly," Blaine answers, like it's simple. "And because wings feel safe."
"I'm glad you like them," Kurt says, "but you need to come with me now."
"Are we going somewhere?" Blaine asks.
"We're going far away," Kurt says. "I have something I want to show you."
"Will we come back? Will I come back?"
Kurt stares at him hard for a minute before he finally admits,
"I don't know. People aren't allowed to come back from the places I take them, but you already do, all the time."
"What does the music say?" Blaine asks.
"It says something I've never heard it say before," Kurt says. "I know you need to come with me, but I don't know what will happen after. I'm sorry."
"That's okay," Blaine says, sitting up quickly, like he was never sick at all. "It's going to be like an adventure. I like adventures when I have them with you."
He lets Kurt help him get settled onto his back, and it's different to be held by feathers instead of clothes, but Blaine thinks he might like it.
"Are we going to see your country?" He asks.
"You are," Kurt confirms, moving quickly out of the room, like he doesn't like staying where he doesn't belong. Blaine glances behind them just once before they slide into a vent, and is surprised when he sees the shape of his old body, still filling the sheets on the bed.
***
"I can't take you the whole way," Kurt says apologetically, after they've been travelling long enough to start skimming over the top of water instead of land.
(click for link to higher quality) (alt link)
"Why not?" Blaine asks, surprised and a little upset, because this was a trip he only wanted to take with Kurt. "Do you have something else you have to do?"
"We need to fly around the world to get to the back of me," Kurt says. "The closer we get to the end, the heavier you get. I'm not strong when I'm close to my beginning. I'm like you were when you were a little baby. I'll be waiting for you there, and I'll carry you for as long as I can, but that very last part of the journey someone else will have to take you."
"Who will it be?" Blaine asks, a little worried.
"Just Finn," Kurt says, "He'll be passing me anyhow and he always helps when I ask him."
"He won't drop me, will he?" Blaine asks, uncertainly.
"He wouldn't dare," is all Kurt says, and Blaine thinks he might be smiling in that smug way he has when he thinks he's stronger than something. It's a smile Kurt wears a lot, but Blaine has noticed that smile usually means Kurt is right, so he's not very worried what feels like weeks later when Finn shows up.
Kurt has been getting closer and closer to the water, so tired sometimes Blaine thinks he can feel the sleepy ache move through Kurt's body into his. Kurt keeps the same shape he had in the strange room Blaine was taken away from, but Blaine thinks he might be doing that on purpose so he can stay at a size that lets him carry Blaine longer. They don't talk much now, because Kurt is too busy concentrating on moving forward. Blaine is a little scared that Kurt might die after he leaves and wants to go back home where Kurt will be safe, but Kurt promises.
"Winds don't die, Blaine. They start over. This part doesn't last forever."
So Blaine allows Finn to take him off of Kurt's back and settles onto this new wind's shoulder. Finn really is much stronger than Kurt is right now, and very broad. He makes Blaine think of giants and towers, but when he looks at Finn's face, all he sees is gentleness and uncertainty. He wonders if maybe Finn doesn't know how strong he is.
In a moment the uncertain face Finn is making is washed away, replaced by surprise as he glances first at Blaine and then back to Kurt.
"You weren't wrong," he says to Kurt, suddenly awkward and trying to cringe away from his own shoulder, like he's not sure he wants Blaine so close all of the sudden.
"Of course I wasn't wrong," Kurt snaps, but his voice is weak and small.
"Why are you taking him away?" Finn demands, and he sounds panicked and angry.
"I'm taking him because he asked to see the country," Kurt says between gritted teeth.
"But he doesn't - " Finn starts, but Kurt cuts him off.
"What else was I supposed to do?" He looks so upset, more upset than Blaine has ever seen him. "He was hurt. I couldn't let him stay."
"It's not our business if he's hurt," Finn insists, and Blaine just wants someone to tell him what's going on. He knows this fight is about him, but he doesn't know why.
"You don't know that," Kurt says, desperately. "The music changed, Finn. I know it doesn't make sense, but I promise I'm only doing what I was told. Just take him with you. Please?"
There's a tense silence and then Finn sags a little, bending to Kurt's demands even though he seems so much bigger right now. His shoulder is so wide, Blaine barely feels the motion at all.
"Thank you," Kurt says, and he flies on without another word.
Blaine frowns, because he didn't get a chance to say goodbye, but Finn sighs and says,
"Don't worry. You'll see him again soon. He has to do the last part alone."
"Oh," Blaine says, and they travel in silence, because Blaine doesn't know how to act around something so strong. He thinks Finn might not like him. After the quiet has gotten so loud Blaine thinks he can hear it talking, Finn says,
"You shouldn't be here right now. Has anyone told you you're not normal?"
"People think it," Blaine says, because there's no point in lying about it.
"They're thinking the right thing," Finn says. "Kurt's been keeping you away from the rest of us because he thinks if we'll tell you things that will scare you. We weren't even sure if you were real because we couldn't figure out where he kept you."
"Why would not belonging make me scared?" Blaine asks.
"Kurt thinks you're lost," Finn says. "Maybe you are or maybe you just left, but it's not right that he's treating you like you belong with the rest of them."
"The rest of who?" Blaine asks, completely bewildered. Finn doesn't make even half as much sense as Kurt does.
"Just remember that you're different," Finn says, ignoring the question. "And no matter how much you like the country, it's not your place to belong. You can't stop somewhere you don't fit."
They don't talk again for the rest of the journey. Blaine decides that he doesn't like Finn that much.
***
Kurt is sitting at the top of the world on a boulder made of ice, water lapping at his feet when Finn finally sets Blaine back down onto the ground and flies away with a sombre nod in their direction. Kurt is hunched in on himself and listless. He stares mostly at his feet or his tightly clasped hands, but when Blaine runs up and rests a hand on his knee, Kurt stares straight at him and smiles.
"Off you go," he says, softly.
"Why do you look so sad?" Blaine demands, because he could never leave when Kurt looks so lonely.
"I'm not sad," Kurt says. "I'm tired. I'm always tired here. This is where I go when I need to be still."
"So this is like sleeping for you?" Blaine asks, needing to be sure everything is alright before he leaves.
"Exactly," Kurt replies. "Go on ahead, Blaine. I promise I'm fine."
Satisfied, Blaine quickly squeezes Kurt's hand and runs around to Kurt's back, but there's nothing there.
"Is something supposed to happen?" He asks, cautiously. "Everything looks the same."
"Well, you didn't do anything," Kurt says, and he sounds like he would be laughing if he wasn't so still. "You can't just walk in. Most people ask for help before they can get inside."
"Finn says I'm not most people," Blaine says, a little sulkily, because he still doesn't think much of the South Wind.
"Never mind what Finn says," Kurt says, a little sterner than before. "Come back here and I'll make sure you get to the country."
Once Blaine is facing Kurt again, Kurt carefully reaches out his hands and lifts Blaine up. His arms are shaking, like it's taking everything he has to do something so small, but he doesn't drop Blaine as he softly sets Blaine down at his back, like he has so many other times. But it's not like the other times, Blaine realizes a second later, because he's not sitting in the folds of a shirt anymore, or even in a nest of feathers. He's standing in a place that he's never been before and he can't see Kurt at all. All around him is the country at the back of the North Wind.
To Chapter 2 | To Masterpost | To Chapter 4