Where Wind and Water Meet - Chapter 4
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 4
Blaine explores the country for what must be days, although he's never certain because in the entire country there's not a single clock or calendar to be found. Everywhere he looks there's something new to take in: A flower he's never seen before, an animal that he's only ever looked at in books, or a person with a different and exciting story to tell him. The weather is beautiful, summer all the time, and all around him he feels the sun on his skin, and hears the laughing water of the countless rivers that pass by his feet. The water is beautiful, and makes Blaine want to splash around in it and play, like he used to do with Tina when they spent their summer afternoons at the pool.
"Does anyone swim here?"
He only asks the question once, the entire time he's there. There never seems to be much point in asking anything more than one time because people only seem to know one answer for any given question.
"Of course not," says the lady he's speaking to, interrupting her story about how people used to say she could use paint to create new worlds and realities. She seems surprised that anyone would think to even ask such a question. "The rivers all move quickly here. There's no telling how far away you'd go once you dove in."
She never says anything about drowning, and Blaine thinks that maybe people don't die here, because it's something a person can only ever do one time. But just because something can't kill you, it doesn't make it safe, so Blaine stays away from the water for quite some time, even though after a while it's the only thing about the entire country that interests him.
It's not that Blaine doesn't like the people he meets, or that he thinks that it's boring. But it's something like boring. It's constant and unchanging and Blaine can't sit comfortably in the middle of so much monotony. Making everything worse is the fact that Kurt can't come in to talk to him, and Blaine thinks maybe he doesn't like it because there's not much point in enjoying any place when Kurt can't be there to share it with him. He wants to go back and tell Kurt about all the things he's seen since coming into the country like he promised he would, but now that he's here he knows why people have so much trouble leaving. There seems to be no way out at all. Blaine knows he can't have walked too far from where Kurt set him when he first arrived, but no matter where he looks, he never sees the end of the country or Kurt's back.
Further complicating things is time. Time doesn't really go anywhere in Kurt's country, but eventually Blaine feels as though he's been looking for Kurt for what should be years. He spends less and less time talking to the interesting people and more time trying to get back to Kurt, until in the end he never talks to anyone at all. He just smiles at them when they catch his eye and carries on by himself. He feels himself getting older, his body stretching out and getting longer, his voice dropping down to something lower and more powerful. It stops when he thinks he might be close to the same size Kurt was that first night they met, and he's happy because he likes the thought that he's becoming more like Kurt. But he also sees how the other people around him stay the same, never getting older and the way he changes makes him feel even more out of place with the forever young people that wander around him.
One day as Blaine heads out in a roughly easterly direction, trying to find just a hint of something that reminds him of Kurt, that will give him any clue about how to get back, he almost runs straight into a girl he hasn't seen before, walking with just as much determination in the other direction.
"I'm sorry," Blaine says, smiling at her dismissively. It's not unusual that she's new to him. New people seem to arrive every day, and there were already so many people here before. Blaine thinks if he stayed for all of time he'd never come close to meeting even half of them. He's about to carry on past her when all of the sudden something about her strikes him as off. Just like him, she feels like something that should be passing through and not staying. He looks at her cautiously and notices how she's doing the same thing, staring at Blaine like something isn't exactly right.
For a long time neither one of them move, looking at each other like they've stumbled across a strange sort of alien life form, when finally the girl narrows her eyes at him and says,
"Why do you see me? I wasn't planning on anyone seeing me right now."
That's when Blaine notices that her hair is moving gently around her, like the breeze is starting from her, not disturbing her.
"Who are you?" He demands, excited like he hasn't been since he said goodbye to Kurt. "Kurt told me that he couldn't get in, but if you're just like he is, how are you here right now?"
The girl is just as excited and agitated.
"Of course Kurt can't get in here. His country is always behind him, and whoever heard of anyone who can stand behind themselves? But you! You're him. When Kurt told us you were back and that you had come here, we thought you'd forget you'd ever even seen us. Everyone in this place forgets about us."
She frowns a little and tilts her head to the side before adding, "I don't understand. You're just as big as I am, but Finn said that you were smaller."
"I was when I met him," Blaine says. "But I've been in this place for a very long time. There's no way out."
"There's always a way out," the girl says, distractedly. "Nevermind that. You can't tell me that you've grown. No one gets older here, it's one of the rules. Why have you changed?"
"I feel just as old as I always was," Blaine says, even though he knows it's not a very good answer. "I'm just bigger that's all. I make more sense this size than I do when I'm smaller."
"Well that's true. I certainly didn't think it was very realistic of you to be such a small child," the girl says almost disapprovingly, straightening her shoulders like she's decided on something. "It's very good to meet you, Blaine. I am the East Wind, and I would like to stay and talk but I really have to be going, I was only meaning to take a shortcut and now I'm dreadfully behind schedule, so - "
"Wait," Blaine interrupts, ready to reach out and stop her if she tries to fly. "You can get out of this place. How? I walk and I walk but I can't find my way back to the start."
Rachel - Blaine remembers Kurt saying that the East Wind was Rachel - smiles at him, and it feels a little bit condescending, as though she's still talking to Blaine's old, 6-year-old body.
"Silly," she says. "You can't walk out. The land Kurt's country sits on stretches out forever."
"Then how is it a shortcut?"
Rachel winks at him, like she's about to give him a hint.
"The land stretches out forever. If you're really such good friends with Kurt you should know that Kurt never goes anywhere by land."
"You have to fly out?" Blaine asks, his heart sinking as he says it. "But, I only fly with him. I can't do it on my own."
"You'll have to think of something else then," Rachel says. "If you really want to leave."
"I just want to talk to him again," Blaine says, feeling even more out-of-place with the sadness that's pressing down on him. Sadness doesn't belong in Kurt's country.
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Rachel offers.
"What if you take me?" Blaine asks, looking at her pleadingly. Rachel bristles and frowns at him in disapproval.
"I help when I'm needed, Blaine," she says. "You need to learn to carry your own weight. If you can't fly, you'll just have to come up with something else."
She pushes off with a dainty foot and almost instantly is gone, the breeze disappearing with her as she goes. Blaine sighs and sits heavily on the ground, because for a moment he felt like he was so close to getting back to his Kurt again. He never should have agreed to come. At least when he was with his parents he wasn't trapped inside his bedroom, never able to reach the window. Kurt probably thinks Blaine hates him and is never coming out to talk again, just because Blaine isn't smart enough to find a way back. He flops down onto the grass and tears up handfuls of it, aimlessly tossing it into one of the many rivers. He ignores the scandalized look being sent to him from the man sitting on the bank several feet away.
He's not sure how long he sits there, staring at the water as it washes away the blades of grass, before he realizes just what it is he's seeing. If the water carries away the grass, maybe it could carry him away, too. After all, everyone does say that the water here travels fast, just like it has somewhere else to be. Blaine looks around, desperately. He doesn't know how to make a boat or raft, but surely there must be something in this place that he can use to try. Surely there must be someone here, someone out of all these aimless, wandering people who can help him. The people here all did amazing things in their old lives, it can't be too hard to find someone who will help him now.
He searches until he finds a man who says that when he was alive he used to sail ships.
"Could you help me build something to sail on?" Blaine asks, eagerly. The man smiles and laughs happily.
"Of course," he says. "It's no trouble at all. When would you like to start?"
"Oh, right now please." Blaine says, before adding politely, "If it's not too much trouble."
"None at all," the man assures him. "Let's just sit down for a minute and think about how we're going to start."
They sit quietly for a very long time, and after a while, Blaine starts to get the feeling that the man isn't planning anything at all.
"What do you think?" he asks, hesitantly. "How should we begin?"
"We need to start by sitting down and taking a minute to decide what to do," the man says, and Blaine's optimistic enthusiasm fades.
"You haven't started to think about it yet?" He asks.
"This isn't the sort of thing that a person just rushes into," the man says. "We need to think carefully about how we ought to think about this before we can actually start."
Blaine smiles a little sadly, thanking the man for his time before he stands up and wanders off. He's been here long enough to know that this place makes people not exactly stupid, but simple. They don't think ahead very well. If this man can't even think carefully enough to decide how to start to come up with ideas, he'll never think clearly enough to do anything.
Blaine feels like crying, because he knows it's no use trying to get help from anyone else, either. It seems like this is a place for people who have no more work and maybe don't even know how to do things anymore. This is the perfect place for them, and they're all so happy to just sit and be peaceful and slow, but Blaine feels stifled and hemmed in when he tries to join them. It goes beyond missing Kurt, he just isn't ready to be still, can always feel some unseen force pushing or pulling at him, urging him to action. Deep down, Blaine knows he still has things to do, and that he'll have to leave Kurt's country altogether before they can begin to happen. If no one here can help him, he'll have to come up with something on his own.
It takes a while longer in the slow, sleepy environment before he realizes that maybe he doesn't need anything to carry him across the water, when he could just swim through it. He paces back and forth on the bank for a few minutes, trying to decide where the water looks deepest, before finally giving up. He's not sure why, but he's certain the water will be able to accommodate him no matter how shallow it is. He'll be able to change to fit the banks the same way the water can. Blaine takes a deep breath, wishes as hard as he knows how, and dives in.
Blaine likes to be in the water and always has. His mom would say he's more animated in water than anywhere else, but he's never had anything like this happen to him before. As soon as his ears are covered by the water, words and sounds and voices and music burst into life and press in on him from all sides. It's like the water is telling him secrets, more than he can even begin to take in, all insistently clamouring for his attention. They tell him that someone has died, but he can't quite catch who or where or even when that person is. He is told that someone else has been born or will be born, and that someone else has become a mother. He can hear the voices of people who are crying because they think they're alone, and he hears laughter now and again, too. Underneath it all is a song, music that Blaine has never heard before. He can make out words, but he doesn't seem to know the language. He thinks if he listened hard enough he might know what it's saying anyhow.
It's all so overwhelming that Blaine forgets to come up for air as he lets the current rush him along its path, but finally after several minutes, he realizes with a start that he doesn't need it. Blaine isn't sure if this water is special somehow, or if he's special while he's in it, but whatever the reason, his lungs don't ache and he stays under for a very long time. He only bothers to come back up to the surface when the current slows and becomes sluggish as the river finds its way into wide and open waters.
When he kicks up to the open air again it's winter as far as the eye can see, and he can't catch so much as a glimpse of Kurt's country. A brief thrill of panic shoots down his spine when he wonders what will happen to him in such a cold place if he's lost and all alone, but then he notices the boulder of ice and Kurt's stooped back a good distance behind him. He quickly pulls himself onto solid ground, which he supposes is really an ice flow, and calls out before rushing over. The cold reaches out and grabs him as soon as he leaves the water.
Kurt doesn't respond at first, but after Blaine comes around to face him and sets a hand on his shoulder excitedly, he blinks and then shakes his head slightly like he's waking up. Blaine is expecting to have to introduce himself all over again now that he's gotten so much bigger, but Kurt just smiles at him and says,
"I didn't think you'd come back."
"I told you I would," Blaine says, hopping on one foot and then another, trying to get the feeling back into his toes. "I missed you."
"And I missed you," Kurt says. He still seems so tired and weak, but Blaine is certain he's never seen his friend look as happy as he does right now.
"I didn't know how to get out again once I was inside," Blaine says, apologetically. "Or else I would have been here sooner."
"You got older," Kurt comments, and like Rachel he sounds like he doesn't know what to make of it. "Most people who find a way back to the outside don't get older."
"Most people don't get older inside, either," Blaine says. "They pick an age they want to be and keep it all the time."
His teeth are chattering and his lips are going numb now. He wishes he could crawl into the feathers or fabric at Kurt's back like he always used to, but he's so much bigger now, and he has a feeling it wouldn't work this close to Kurt's country anyhow. If he tried he might just end up back where he started, right close to Kurt and somehow locked away from him at the same time.
"I'd ask you to tell me more," Kurt says, a little amused. "But you don't seem to be in the mood for very much talking right now."
"I don't understand," Blaine shivers. "It was all fine until a few minutes ago."
"What changed?"
"I left the water?" Blaine says, not sure if that's the right answer or not.
"Maybe you should go back in," Kurt suggests.
Blaine wants to argue, because he didn't leave Kurt's country to go swimming - he came to talk to Kurt. But then he feels a steady, no-nonsense wind come and push at him, making him stagger back a few feet as he tries to escape it, because it's even colder on his face when he's standing on an island made of ice. As he struggles to keep his footing, he ends up splashing into the water, stopping before it gets much deeper than his ankles. The coldness drains out of his body almost immediately, and he finds that he can distantly hear the music and voices again, much fainter than they had been while he was completely submerged.
He almost starts to question what's happening to him in this place, but then Kurt hesitantly asks him what it's like in his country, and it makes Blaine so sad to think about how Kurt is always locked out of his real home, forced to fly around the world without ever stopping, that he forgets all about himself and sets to telling Kurt everything he can in painstaking detail.
***
He never goes back into the country. He never wants to, not after going such a long time without Kurt. They talk about everything in the endless amount of time that passes between them. They talk about Blaine's family, and how Kurt feels about the other winds, until Blaine reaches the conclusion that for Kurt the three winds are just like a sort of family, too. He feels better knowing Kurt isn't as alone as he first thought. The more Kurt talks the more Blaine feels like he knows them, like he's always known them, far better than he knows his own parents and brother. Sometimes he even knows things about how the winds work without Kurt telling him, like which part of the world each one likes to visit the most when they go flying, and that far away, so far that a person has to travel through space and sky without air to find them, there are other winds like the four here, who fly around planets of their own.
"Most of them aren't as lucky as we are though," Kurt says.
"Why are you better?" Blaine asks, curiously. He doesn't doubt that Kurt is telling the truth, but he doesn't know how Kurt has figured this out.
"We have water," Kurt shrugs. "Not a lot of places have that, but it's very important. Without water the wind would have the wrong kind of air, and then the planet would be empty. You need both parts before anything grows."
"You need more than just those things, though," Blaine insists, because nothing is ever that simple.
"Maybe," Kurt says. "But I think water is the most important."
Blaine certainly can't deny that the water is nice. He hasn't left it once since Kurt urged him to stand in it to stay warm. Blaine can't begin to understand why the water is so helpful for him, because he knows from things his teacher told him in school, and from stories people told him in Kurt's own country, that cold water doesn't keep you warm, it makes you die faster. But for Blaine it feels like being wrapped up in a warm, welcoming blanket. Sometimes he lets himself go far into the water and float away from Kurt, leaning his head back and letting the music rush into him as he sinks under. He's never felt like he belongs anywhere more than in the water. Kurt frowns like he wants to talk about it when Blaine mentions it, but he never does. Blaine knows it's because the music is telling Kurt to wait. He can hear it now, too.
***
The more time that passes, the better Blaine gets at understanding the songs. Sometimes when Kurt has to leave him to go help more people find his country, or to clean up a different part of the world, Blaine dives under the water and listens for hours, waiting for the next piece of the music to fall into a place where he can understand it. He knows now that the music is everywhere, but that most people can't hear it. It takes a while for him to realize that if he can hear it, it might mean he's more than just different. It might mean that he's not a real person at all.
"Of course you're real," Kurt snaps, sounding a little more agitated than usual, because he's just gotten back after being gone a very long time, and it's always hard for him to settle back in. "You have a family, don't you? You love them, don't you?"
"There's a family," Blaine says, worriedly. "And I must love them, but I don't think they're mine. I don't know what I'm doing with them."
"I think you got lost," Kurt says. He sounds sad as he says it. "I think you were missing for a very long time, and if you hadn't somehow found that family, you might never have come back."
"But I'm not back yet," Blaine says, and he's not sure if this is something the song has told him or if it's something he just knows. "I can feel where home is now, but I can't get there all the way. Why not?"
"I don't know," Kurt says. "Keep listening to the singing, Blaine. One day you'll hear the answer."
Blaine tries to listen for the answer, he really does. But sometimes it's hard to stop from listening to what comes to him in the water besides the music. He hears voices and laughter and crying, and so much life swirling around him. It makes him happy in a way he doesn't know if he can explain, to know that the world can hold so much spark. Blaine feels more and more disconnected from humanity with each passing minute, but he loves feeling it crowd in around him, too. Until the day he recognizes one of the voices crying.
Kurt has gone far away, and Blaine is waiting patiently, trying to listen to the music when he's distracted by a voice he knows almost as well as Kurt's, choked and unsteady, pleading with someone to,
"Just hold on, baby. Just fight a little harder."
The words come with the smallest spike of pain, and the faintest pressure on his wrist, like someone is gently rubbing it between their hands. He listens a little more carefully, and strange beeping and humming noises start to accompany the pleading voice. Soon his father's and brother's voices join his mother's. His parents talk to each other about things like "hard decisions" and if there's ever a good time to "let go." Cooper only ever says, "Please" and "Blaine." They all sound so scared.
Kurt is smiling at him in resignation when he finally gets back.
"I have to go back," is the only thing Blaine can say. Kurt nods.
"How did you know?" Blaine asks.
"The song changed," Kurt says.
"I'm not ready to stay," Blaine says, and it hurts, because he wants to be ready.
"I know," Kurt says. "You still don't fit. You can't right now. Do you remember the first night we went flying together, and the man we saw who wanted to run away to a new life?"
Blaine nods, answering, "You said it's wrong to leave a place where people need you."
"Well, people still need you in the place where you came from," Kurt says. "They're not ready to let you go yet, and you'll never belong anywhere until they are."
"I've been away for so long," Blaine says, worry seizing him at the thought of seeing them all again. "What if they won't recognize me?"
"They won't see the change," Kurt promises. "They only think you've just left. To everyone there, you'll be the same Blaine you always were."
"How do I get back?" Blaine asks.
"I'll take you," Kurt assures him. "But we'll have to walk the first part of the way, until I'm strong enough to carry you."
They start out almost at once. It's cold out of the water, and Blaine wants to go back more than almost anything, but he knows that things will work out for the best if he keeps moving forward. Kurt takes his hand and they make fast progress, seeming to cover entire miles with each stride. Blaine can feel his own body grow smaller every step, and weakness overtakes him even as Kurt gets stronger. Before long he's stumbling and just wants to close his eyes and sleep, for the first time in what feels like years. The last thing he remembers is strong arms lifting him up and holding him close as his head gets heavier and heavier.
***
Waking up is hard and he thinks he's crying a little when he finally opens his eyes, looking up into the face of an unfamiliar doctor, who is frowning over him and saying something that Blaine can't quite make out. His head aches and his heart does, too. He looks down at his arms, which somehow seem even smaller than they did before the night he got sick. He's uncomfortably aware of his tired aching body, and how trapped he feels inside of it. Nothing is right and everything is wrong. He can't see Kurt anywhere.
He's distracted soon enough by the sight of his mom and dad rushing to his side, crying and looking so relieved and happy. Seeing them smile through their tears makes him feel a little better. He still misses Kurt, but he starts to remember why it was important to find his way back here, at least for a little while. The lady doctor keeps talking at him, but all Blaine can hear is buzzing and very faintly, far, far behind that, just a hint of the old music, playing softly. His mother's voice doesn't sound right either, and Blaine wonders if everyone always sounded this fuzzy and he's just forgotten, or if he's forgotten how to understand English, but then his dad says,
"Blaine, buddy, can you answer the doctor's questions?"
Blaine starts in surprise. The sound is still muffled, but only slightly. It's almost exactly the way he remembered it. How can he have forgotten how to listen to some voices and not others? The realization dawns on him slowly, and he carefully fixes his gaze on the doctor as he tells her,
"I can't hear you. Your voice keeps echoing until nothing makes sense. What happened to my ears?"
It takes a while to sort everything out, especially because everyone in the room seems to find something about Blaine off-putting whenever he talks, like he's not normal, and it's even more recognizable than it had been before he'd gotten sick.
"You're a very articulate young man," the doctor finally says at one point, speaking much louder so Blaine can sort out the words from the jumble of noises that accompany it.
"He wasn't this articulate ten days ago," his dad says it softly, but Blaine can still hear it, because it's his dad and for some reason Blaine hasn't lost his father's voice.
"What happened ten days ago?" he asks.
"You got sick and we had to bring you here," his mom says.
"Only ten days?" Blaine is shocked. "How could all of that have happened in ten days?"
He's beginning to realize why his carefully thought out answers to all the questions being asked of him are strange to hear coming from someone who's supposed to be so young, but he doesn't know how to stop being who he is. Blaine has never been good at pretending he fits. He doesn't worry about any of this for too long, however, because he's so tired he can hardly stay awake long enough for the doctor to check his ears, tapping a strange fork with two prongs against her hand and holding it to his head, waiting for a reaction. He drifts back into exhausted sleep listening to his father talking about hearing loss to a person Blaine can't understand, a one-sided conversation with two people talking.
To Chapter 3 | To Masterpost | To Chapter 5
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 4
Blaine explores the country for what must be days, although he's never certain because in the entire country there's not a single clock or calendar to be found. Everywhere he looks there's something new to take in: A flower he's never seen before, an animal that he's only ever looked at in books, or a person with a different and exciting story to tell him. The weather is beautiful, summer all the time, and all around him he feels the sun on his skin, and hears the laughing water of the countless rivers that pass by his feet. The water is beautiful, and makes Blaine want to splash around in it and play, like he used to do with Tina when they spent their summer afternoons at the pool.
"Does anyone swim here?"
He only asks the question once, the entire time he's there. There never seems to be much point in asking anything more than one time because people only seem to know one answer for any given question.
"Of course not," says the lady he's speaking to, interrupting her story about how people used to say she could use paint to create new worlds and realities. She seems surprised that anyone would think to even ask such a question. "The rivers all move quickly here. There's no telling how far away you'd go once you dove in."
She never says anything about drowning, and Blaine thinks that maybe people don't die here, because it's something a person can only ever do one time. But just because something can't kill you, it doesn't make it safe, so Blaine stays away from the water for quite some time, even though after a while it's the only thing about the entire country that interests him.
It's not that Blaine doesn't like the people he meets, or that he thinks that it's boring. But it's something like boring. It's constant and unchanging and Blaine can't sit comfortably in the middle of so much monotony. Making everything worse is the fact that Kurt can't come in to talk to him, and Blaine thinks maybe he doesn't like it because there's not much point in enjoying any place when Kurt can't be there to share it with him. He wants to go back and tell Kurt about all the things he's seen since coming into the country like he promised he would, but now that he's here he knows why people have so much trouble leaving. There seems to be no way out at all. Blaine knows he can't have walked too far from where Kurt set him when he first arrived, but no matter where he looks, he never sees the end of the country or Kurt's back.
Further complicating things is time. Time doesn't really go anywhere in Kurt's country, but eventually Blaine feels as though he's been looking for Kurt for what should be years. He spends less and less time talking to the interesting people and more time trying to get back to Kurt, until in the end he never talks to anyone at all. He just smiles at them when they catch his eye and carries on by himself. He feels himself getting older, his body stretching out and getting longer, his voice dropping down to something lower and more powerful. It stops when he thinks he might be close to the same size Kurt was that first night they met, and he's happy because he likes the thought that he's becoming more like Kurt. But he also sees how the other people around him stay the same, never getting older and the way he changes makes him feel even more out of place with the forever young people that wander around him.
One day as Blaine heads out in a roughly easterly direction, trying to find just a hint of something that reminds him of Kurt, that will give him any clue about how to get back, he almost runs straight into a girl he hasn't seen before, walking with just as much determination in the other direction.
"I'm sorry," Blaine says, smiling at her dismissively. It's not unusual that she's new to him. New people seem to arrive every day, and there were already so many people here before. Blaine thinks if he stayed for all of time he'd never come close to meeting even half of them. He's about to carry on past her when all of the sudden something about her strikes him as off. Just like him, she feels like something that should be passing through and not staying. He looks at her cautiously and notices how she's doing the same thing, staring at Blaine like something isn't exactly right.
For a long time neither one of them move, looking at each other like they've stumbled across a strange sort of alien life form, when finally the girl narrows her eyes at him and says,
"Why do you see me? I wasn't planning on anyone seeing me right now."
That's when Blaine notices that her hair is moving gently around her, like the breeze is starting from her, not disturbing her.
"Who are you?" He demands, excited like he hasn't been since he said goodbye to Kurt. "Kurt told me that he couldn't get in, but if you're just like he is, how are you here right now?"
The girl is just as excited and agitated.
"Of course Kurt can't get in here. His country is always behind him, and whoever heard of anyone who can stand behind themselves? But you! You're him. When Kurt told us you were back and that you had come here, we thought you'd forget you'd ever even seen us. Everyone in this place forgets about us."
She frowns a little and tilts her head to the side before adding, "I don't understand. You're just as big as I am, but Finn said that you were smaller."
"I was when I met him," Blaine says. "But I've been in this place for a very long time. There's no way out."
"There's always a way out," the girl says, distractedly. "Nevermind that. You can't tell me that you've grown. No one gets older here, it's one of the rules. Why have you changed?"
"I feel just as old as I always was," Blaine says, even though he knows it's not a very good answer. "I'm just bigger that's all. I make more sense this size than I do when I'm smaller."
"Well that's true. I certainly didn't think it was very realistic of you to be such a small child," the girl says almost disapprovingly, straightening her shoulders like she's decided on something. "It's very good to meet you, Blaine. I am the East Wind, and I would like to stay and talk but I really have to be going, I was only meaning to take a shortcut and now I'm dreadfully behind schedule, so - "
"Wait," Blaine interrupts, ready to reach out and stop her if she tries to fly. "You can get out of this place. How? I walk and I walk but I can't find my way back to the start."
Rachel - Blaine remembers Kurt saying that the East Wind was Rachel - smiles at him, and it feels a little bit condescending, as though she's still talking to Blaine's old, 6-year-old body.
"Silly," she says. "You can't walk out. The land Kurt's country sits on stretches out forever."
"Then how is it a shortcut?"
Rachel winks at him, like she's about to give him a hint.
"The land stretches out forever. If you're really such good friends with Kurt you should know that Kurt never goes anywhere by land."
"You have to fly out?" Blaine asks, his heart sinking as he says it. "But, I only fly with him. I can't do it on my own."
"You'll have to think of something else then," Rachel says. "If you really want to leave."
"I just want to talk to him again," Blaine says, feeling even more out-of-place with the sadness that's pressing down on him. Sadness doesn't belong in Kurt's country.
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Rachel offers.
"What if you take me?" Blaine asks, looking at her pleadingly. Rachel bristles and frowns at him in disapproval.
"I help when I'm needed, Blaine," she says. "You need to learn to carry your own weight. If you can't fly, you'll just have to come up with something else."
She pushes off with a dainty foot and almost instantly is gone, the breeze disappearing with her as she goes. Blaine sighs and sits heavily on the ground, because for a moment he felt like he was so close to getting back to his Kurt again. He never should have agreed to come. At least when he was with his parents he wasn't trapped inside his bedroom, never able to reach the window. Kurt probably thinks Blaine hates him and is never coming out to talk again, just because Blaine isn't smart enough to find a way back. He flops down onto the grass and tears up handfuls of it, aimlessly tossing it into one of the many rivers. He ignores the scandalized look being sent to him from the man sitting on the bank several feet away.
He's not sure how long he sits there, staring at the water as it washes away the blades of grass, before he realizes just what it is he's seeing. If the water carries away the grass, maybe it could carry him away, too. After all, everyone does say that the water here travels fast, just like it has somewhere else to be. Blaine looks around, desperately. He doesn't know how to make a boat or raft, but surely there must be something in this place that he can use to try. Surely there must be someone here, someone out of all these aimless, wandering people who can help him. The people here all did amazing things in their old lives, it can't be too hard to find someone who will help him now.
He searches until he finds a man who says that when he was alive he used to sail ships.
"Could you help me build something to sail on?" Blaine asks, eagerly. The man smiles and laughs happily.
"Of course," he says. "It's no trouble at all. When would you like to start?"
"Oh, right now please." Blaine says, before adding politely, "If it's not too much trouble."
"None at all," the man assures him. "Let's just sit down for a minute and think about how we're going to start."
They sit quietly for a very long time, and after a while, Blaine starts to get the feeling that the man isn't planning anything at all.
"What do you think?" he asks, hesitantly. "How should we begin?"
"We need to start by sitting down and taking a minute to decide what to do," the man says, and Blaine's optimistic enthusiasm fades.
"You haven't started to think about it yet?" He asks.
"This isn't the sort of thing that a person just rushes into," the man says. "We need to think carefully about how we ought to think about this before we can actually start."
Blaine smiles a little sadly, thanking the man for his time before he stands up and wanders off. He's been here long enough to know that this place makes people not exactly stupid, but simple. They don't think ahead very well. If this man can't even think carefully enough to decide how to start to come up with ideas, he'll never think clearly enough to do anything.
Blaine feels like crying, because he knows it's no use trying to get help from anyone else, either. It seems like this is a place for people who have no more work and maybe don't even know how to do things anymore. This is the perfect place for them, and they're all so happy to just sit and be peaceful and slow, but Blaine feels stifled and hemmed in when he tries to join them. It goes beyond missing Kurt, he just isn't ready to be still, can always feel some unseen force pushing or pulling at him, urging him to action. Deep down, Blaine knows he still has things to do, and that he'll have to leave Kurt's country altogether before they can begin to happen. If no one here can help him, he'll have to come up with something on his own.
It takes a while longer in the slow, sleepy environment before he realizes that maybe he doesn't need anything to carry him across the water, when he could just swim through it. He paces back and forth on the bank for a few minutes, trying to decide where the water looks deepest, before finally giving up. He's not sure why, but he's certain the water will be able to accommodate him no matter how shallow it is. He'll be able to change to fit the banks the same way the water can. Blaine takes a deep breath, wishes as hard as he knows how, and dives in.
Blaine likes to be in the water and always has. His mom would say he's more animated in water than anywhere else, but he's never had anything like this happen to him before. As soon as his ears are covered by the water, words and sounds and voices and music burst into life and press in on him from all sides. It's like the water is telling him secrets, more than he can even begin to take in, all insistently clamouring for his attention. They tell him that someone has died, but he can't quite catch who or where or even when that person is. He is told that someone else has been born or will be born, and that someone else has become a mother. He can hear the voices of people who are crying because they think they're alone, and he hears laughter now and again, too. Underneath it all is a song, music that Blaine has never heard before. He can make out words, but he doesn't seem to know the language. He thinks if he listened hard enough he might know what it's saying anyhow.
It's all so overwhelming that Blaine forgets to come up for air as he lets the current rush him along its path, but finally after several minutes, he realizes with a start that he doesn't need it. Blaine isn't sure if this water is special somehow, or if he's special while he's in it, but whatever the reason, his lungs don't ache and he stays under for a very long time. He only bothers to come back up to the surface when the current slows and becomes sluggish as the river finds its way into wide and open waters.
When he kicks up to the open air again it's winter as far as the eye can see, and he can't catch so much as a glimpse of Kurt's country. A brief thrill of panic shoots down his spine when he wonders what will happen to him in such a cold place if he's lost and all alone, but then he notices the boulder of ice and Kurt's stooped back a good distance behind him. He quickly pulls himself onto solid ground, which he supposes is really an ice flow, and calls out before rushing over. The cold reaches out and grabs him as soon as he leaves the water.
Kurt doesn't respond at first, but after Blaine comes around to face him and sets a hand on his shoulder excitedly, he blinks and then shakes his head slightly like he's waking up. Blaine is expecting to have to introduce himself all over again now that he's gotten so much bigger, but Kurt just smiles at him and says,
"I didn't think you'd come back."
"I told you I would," Blaine says, hopping on one foot and then another, trying to get the feeling back into his toes. "I missed you."
"And I missed you," Kurt says. He still seems so tired and weak, but Blaine is certain he's never seen his friend look as happy as he does right now.
"I didn't know how to get out again once I was inside," Blaine says, apologetically. "Or else I would have been here sooner."
"You got older," Kurt comments, and like Rachel he sounds like he doesn't know what to make of it. "Most people who find a way back to the outside don't get older."
"Most people don't get older inside, either," Blaine says. "They pick an age they want to be and keep it all the time."
His teeth are chattering and his lips are going numb now. He wishes he could crawl into the feathers or fabric at Kurt's back like he always used to, but he's so much bigger now, and he has a feeling it wouldn't work this close to Kurt's country anyhow. If he tried he might just end up back where he started, right close to Kurt and somehow locked away from him at the same time.
"I'd ask you to tell me more," Kurt says, a little amused. "But you don't seem to be in the mood for very much talking right now."
"I don't understand," Blaine shivers. "It was all fine until a few minutes ago."
"What changed?"
"I left the water?" Blaine says, not sure if that's the right answer or not.
"Maybe you should go back in," Kurt suggests.
Blaine wants to argue, because he didn't leave Kurt's country to go swimming - he came to talk to Kurt. But then he feels a steady, no-nonsense wind come and push at him, making him stagger back a few feet as he tries to escape it, because it's even colder on his face when he's standing on an island made of ice. As he struggles to keep his footing, he ends up splashing into the water, stopping before it gets much deeper than his ankles. The coldness drains out of his body almost immediately, and he finds that he can distantly hear the music and voices again, much fainter than they had been while he was completely submerged.
He almost starts to question what's happening to him in this place, but then Kurt hesitantly asks him what it's like in his country, and it makes Blaine so sad to think about how Kurt is always locked out of his real home, forced to fly around the world without ever stopping, that he forgets all about himself and sets to telling Kurt everything he can in painstaking detail.
***
He never goes back into the country. He never wants to, not after going such a long time without Kurt. They talk about everything in the endless amount of time that passes between them. They talk about Blaine's family, and how Kurt feels about the other winds, until Blaine reaches the conclusion that for Kurt the three winds are just like a sort of family, too. He feels better knowing Kurt isn't as alone as he first thought. The more Kurt talks the more Blaine feels like he knows them, like he's always known them, far better than he knows his own parents and brother. Sometimes he even knows things about how the winds work without Kurt telling him, like which part of the world each one likes to visit the most when they go flying, and that far away, so far that a person has to travel through space and sky without air to find them, there are other winds like the four here, who fly around planets of their own.
"Most of them aren't as lucky as we are though," Kurt says.
"Why are you better?" Blaine asks, curiously. He doesn't doubt that Kurt is telling the truth, but he doesn't know how Kurt has figured this out.
"We have water," Kurt shrugs. "Not a lot of places have that, but it's very important. Without water the wind would have the wrong kind of air, and then the planet would be empty. You need both parts before anything grows."
"You need more than just those things, though," Blaine insists, because nothing is ever that simple.
"Maybe," Kurt says. "But I think water is the most important."
Blaine certainly can't deny that the water is nice. He hasn't left it once since Kurt urged him to stand in it to stay warm. Blaine can't begin to understand why the water is so helpful for him, because he knows from things his teacher told him in school, and from stories people told him in Kurt's own country, that cold water doesn't keep you warm, it makes you die faster. But for Blaine it feels like being wrapped up in a warm, welcoming blanket. Sometimes he lets himself go far into the water and float away from Kurt, leaning his head back and letting the music rush into him as he sinks under. He's never felt like he belongs anywhere more than in the water. Kurt frowns like he wants to talk about it when Blaine mentions it, but he never does. Blaine knows it's because the music is telling Kurt to wait. He can hear it now, too.
***
The more time that passes, the better Blaine gets at understanding the songs. Sometimes when Kurt has to leave him to go help more people find his country, or to clean up a different part of the world, Blaine dives under the water and listens for hours, waiting for the next piece of the music to fall into a place where he can understand it. He knows now that the music is everywhere, but that most people can't hear it. It takes a while for him to realize that if he can hear it, it might mean he's more than just different. It might mean that he's not a real person at all.
"Of course you're real," Kurt snaps, sounding a little more agitated than usual, because he's just gotten back after being gone a very long time, and it's always hard for him to settle back in. "You have a family, don't you? You love them, don't you?"
"There's a family," Blaine says, worriedly. "And I must love them, but I don't think they're mine. I don't know what I'm doing with them."
"I think you got lost," Kurt says. He sounds sad as he says it. "I think you were missing for a very long time, and if you hadn't somehow found that family, you might never have come back."
"But I'm not back yet," Blaine says, and he's not sure if this is something the song has told him or if it's something he just knows. "I can feel where home is now, but I can't get there all the way. Why not?"
"I don't know," Kurt says. "Keep listening to the singing, Blaine. One day you'll hear the answer."
Blaine tries to listen for the answer, he really does. But sometimes it's hard to stop from listening to what comes to him in the water besides the music. He hears voices and laughter and crying, and so much life swirling around him. It makes him happy in a way he doesn't know if he can explain, to know that the world can hold so much spark. Blaine feels more and more disconnected from humanity with each passing minute, but he loves feeling it crowd in around him, too. Until the day he recognizes one of the voices crying.
Kurt has gone far away, and Blaine is waiting patiently, trying to listen to the music when he's distracted by a voice he knows almost as well as Kurt's, choked and unsteady, pleading with someone to,
"Just hold on, baby. Just fight a little harder."
The words come with the smallest spike of pain, and the faintest pressure on his wrist, like someone is gently rubbing it between their hands. He listens a little more carefully, and strange beeping and humming noises start to accompany the pleading voice. Soon his father's and brother's voices join his mother's. His parents talk to each other about things like "hard decisions" and if there's ever a good time to "let go." Cooper only ever says, "Please" and "Blaine." They all sound so scared.
Kurt is smiling at him in resignation when he finally gets back.
"I have to go back," is the only thing Blaine can say. Kurt nods.
"How did you know?" Blaine asks.
"The song changed," Kurt says.
"I'm not ready to stay," Blaine says, and it hurts, because he wants to be ready.
"I know," Kurt says. "You still don't fit. You can't right now. Do you remember the first night we went flying together, and the man we saw who wanted to run away to a new life?"
Blaine nods, answering, "You said it's wrong to leave a place where people need you."
"Well, people still need you in the place where you came from," Kurt says. "They're not ready to let you go yet, and you'll never belong anywhere until they are."
"I've been away for so long," Blaine says, worry seizing him at the thought of seeing them all again. "What if they won't recognize me?"
"They won't see the change," Kurt promises. "They only think you've just left. To everyone there, you'll be the same Blaine you always were."
"How do I get back?" Blaine asks.
"I'll take you," Kurt assures him. "But we'll have to walk the first part of the way, until I'm strong enough to carry you."
They start out almost at once. It's cold out of the water, and Blaine wants to go back more than almost anything, but he knows that things will work out for the best if he keeps moving forward. Kurt takes his hand and they make fast progress, seeming to cover entire miles with each stride. Blaine can feel his own body grow smaller every step, and weakness overtakes him even as Kurt gets stronger. Before long he's stumbling and just wants to close his eyes and sleep, for the first time in what feels like years. The last thing he remembers is strong arms lifting him up and holding him close as his head gets heavier and heavier.
***
Waking up is hard and he thinks he's crying a little when he finally opens his eyes, looking up into the face of an unfamiliar doctor, who is frowning over him and saying something that Blaine can't quite make out. His head aches and his heart does, too. He looks down at his arms, which somehow seem even smaller than they did before the night he got sick. He's uncomfortably aware of his tired aching body, and how trapped he feels inside of it. Nothing is right and everything is wrong. He can't see Kurt anywhere.
He's distracted soon enough by the sight of his mom and dad rushing to his side, crying and looking so relieved and happy. Seeing them smile through their tears makes him feel a little better. He still misses Kurt, but he starts to remember why it was important to find his way back here, at least for a little while. The lady doctor keeps talking at him, but all Blaine can hear is buzzing and very faintly, far, far behind that, just a hint of the old music, playing softly. His mother's voice doesn't sound right either, and Blaine wonders if everyone always sounded this fuzzy and he's just forgotten, or if he's forgotten how to understand English, but then his dad says,
"Blaine, buddy, can you answer the doctor's questions?"
Blaine starts in surprise. The sound is still muffled, but only slightly. It's almost exactly the way he remembered it. How can he have forgotten how to listen to some voices and not others? The realization dawns on him slowly, and he carefully fixes his gaze on the doctor as he tells her,
"I can't hear you. Your voice keeps echoing until nothing makes sense. What happened to my ears?"
It takes a while to sort everything out, especially because everyone in the room seems to find something about Blaine off-putting whenever he talks, like he's not normal, and it's even more recognizable than it had been before he'd gotten sick.
"You're a very articulate young man," the doctor finally says at one point, speaking much louder so Blaine can sort out the words from the jumble of noises that accompany it.
"He wasn't this articulate ten days ago," his dad says it softly, but Blaine can still hear it, because it's his dad and for some reason Blaine hasn't lost his father's voice.
"What happened ten days ago?" he asks.
"You got sick and we had to bring you here," his mom says.
"Only ten days?" Blaine is shocked. "How could all of that have happened in ten days?"
He's beginning to realize why his carefully thought out answers to all the questions being asked of him are strange to hear coming from someone who's supposed to be so young, but he doesn't know how to stop being who he is. Blaine has never been good at pretending he fits. He doesn't worry about any of this for too long, however, because he's so tired he can hardly stay awake long enough for the doctor to check his ears, tapping a strange fork with two prongs against her hand and holding it to his head, waiting for a reaction. He drifts back into exhausted sleep listening to his father talking about hearing loss to a person Blaine can't understand, a one-sided conversation with two people talking.
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