Shine, Chapter Five
We're halfway there! Chapter 5 out of 10!
Prologue - Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The ship made port on the side of Mount McKinley three hours later.
Puck threw out his arm as Blaine started to get up.
“Don't be ridiculous,” he said, frowning. “You can't come with us. You need to be here when we get back."
“But-Kurt?” he said, uncertainly.
“Has to come with us, too,” the Captain said, raising his eyebrow. “The crew thinks he's a prisoner."
Kurt lent a backwards glance and a quick smile to Blaine (the first truly kind smile Blaine had received from Kurt) before following the Captain off the ship.
It all seemed so very... illegal, Kurt thought as the first mate (Mercedes, he heard someone call her) opened a door in the side of a shoddy looking shop. The door was marked “Terri” in dainty, loopy letters that contrasted almost laughably with the look of the rest of the building.
Mercedes locked the door behind them, which only added to Kurt's suspicions towards the legality of the whole ordeal.
Terri was a somewhat weasel-y looking woman, with a deceptively sweet smile but a hard gaze. She opened the container of lightning, a wrinkled nose instantly indicative of her displeasure.
“It doesn't seem very fresh,” she said, closing the container and folding her arms.
“Shall I give you a taste, Terri?” Puck asked, a roguish grin on his face as he lifted a slim leather tube from his shoulder.
“No, no. Oh, there you go anyway,” she said in exasperation, as Puck slid open the tube and shot a thin jet of lightning at a rack of merchandise on the wall. Something large and metallic-sounding clattered to the floor.
“Like those are cheap,” Terri snapped, but made no move to pick whatever it was up.
“I think it's still crackling, very much alive, very fresh,” Puck said, handing the tube of lightning over to the blond-haired woman Kurt believed to be named Brittany. “So, name your best price."
Terri pursed her lips. “For 10,000 bolts?"
“Ten thousands bolts of finest quality grade A,” Puck corrected.
“Yes,” Terri said, “but it's difficult to ship, isn't it? Difficult to store? If I get the revenue men in here sniffing around... best offer, 150 guineas."
“Ladies, put the merchandise back on board and prepare to sail,” Puck said, gesturing to the lightning. Mercedes bent to lift the container just as Terri spoke.
“One minute. Hold on. One-sixty."
“Seeing as I'm feeling generous today,” Puck said (someone behind him cracked their knuckles threateningly-Kurt wasn't sure who), “I'll settle for two hundred."
“Two hundred?” Terri said, in disbelief. “Okay, you're having a laugh. Has he been sailing up where the air's too thin?” she asked, addressing the crew and Kurt.
Kurt stared at her, both eyebrows raised, his mouth pressed tight.
“You're being very rude,” Puck murmured.
“Not anymore,” Terri said, lifting her chin defensively.
“Two hundred.” Puck folded his arms.
“One-eighty,” Terri countered.
“Two hundred."
“That's not a negotation. I'm changing my number. One-eight-five."
“Did I hear two hundred?"
“From you, you did, yes."
“You said two hundred."
“If I did, you're a ventriloquist.”
“Okay, one-nine-five, final offer,” Terri said, looking as if she was in physical pain.
Puck reached out to shake Terri's hand. “One-nine-five it is. So with tax, that's-let's see-two hundred.”
Terri's forced smile finally fell. “Brilliant. Put it in the back.”
As two of the men-Wes and David, if Kurt remembered correctly-moved to take the lightning into the back room, Terri gestured for Puck to follow her.
Kurt followed him immediately, still uncertain about being alone with the crew.
Terri opened her mouth to say something to the Captain, then seemed to notice Kurt. “Yes? Can I help you?"
Kurt opened his mouth, ready to throw out a particularly cutting remark, but Puck shook his head, almost imperceptibly.
Kurt closed his mouth, and settled for walking away with an extra irritated flounce in his step.
“Nosy,” Terri said, her nose wrinkling in slight disgust.
“What did you say your name was?” Mercedes asked, smiling kindly at Kurt. She was standing next to the somewhat vacant-looking blond.
He blinked at her for a moment. “Kurt.” He hadn't expected any of them to actually be kind to him.
“Mercedes,” she said, offering a hand. “This is Brittany."
“I know.” he took it. “You're the first mate?”
“I'm the only woman in the crew who hasn't slept with him,” she snorted. Brittany nodded, a placid smile on her face.
He arched an eyebrow. “Captain Puckerman gets around?”
“He's slept with most of the men on the ship, too,” Mercedes shook her head as Kurt's eyebrows shot up even more. “He's sort of an equal opportunity type of person.”
“Have you heard any of these rumors going around about a fallen star?” Terri asked, quietly. “Everyone's been talking about it. You get your hands on one of them, we can shut up shop. Retire. God knows I'd like to. I'm not built to work five days a week.”
“Fallen star,” Puck repeated.
“Yeah."
His eyes drifted over to where Kurt was standing, immersed in conversation with Mercedes. There was the slightest glow to him-one that wouldn't be noticed by someone who wasn't really looking for it.
He turned back to Terri, and shook his head.
She looked a little disappointed. “Nothing on your travels?”
“No,” Puck said, “I haven't heard anything.”
“Not even a little sniff about it, down at the market? Everyone's going on about it down there.”
“Which market, the market at the wall?” Puck's voice was infused with skepticism. “Terri, you're wasting your time listening to gossip from the kind of pond scum that do their trading down there.”
Terri appeared as if she was about to say something.
“Speak of the devil,” Puckerman said, as Ditchwater Sue came into view.
“Yeah?” Sue said, eying them both suspiciously. “What were you saying, then?”
“Just what a wonderful woman you are, Sue, how the world wouldn't be the same without you,” Puck schmoozed, a sickening smile on his face.
Sue rolled her eyes. “Eat my feces, Puckerman."
“I can see that you two have business to attend to, so my crew and I will be going,” Puckerman said politely.
The return to the ship was silent. Kurt walked in between Mercedes and Puck, avoiding eye contact with the rest of the crew and wondering when, exactly, this plan with Blaine was going to unfold.
He didn't have long to wait. He and Mercedes were the first to board the ship, so they were the first to see the well-dressed, confident-looking young man who was reclining against a load of cargo with a smug smile on his face.
“Captain Puckerman,” he drawled.
The crew drew their swords.
Puck pulled them back. “Stand down,” he scolded, striding forward to wrap an arm around Blaine's shoulders. “Meet my nephew, Blaine Anderson. He'll be joining us for our journey home."
“Uncle,” Blaine said, the smirk still present.
“I have something to keep you amused on the way.” Puck leered, tugging Kurt's arm until he stumbled, catching himself on Blaine's shoulder.
Blaine looked confused by this turn of events, which only made sense.
“Smile, smile, Blaine,” Kurt hissed, “and wink. Lewdly.”
Blaine's face instantly shifted from an expression of confusion into one of arrogance and... oh god, arousal, and that expression was simply far too attractive on Blaine's face, and Kurt had to turn away.
The crew dispersed quickly, slapping Blaine on the back and welcoming him aboard, and Kurt and Blaine were left alone.
“That was odd,” Blaine managed, and Kurt rolled his eyes.
“You have to at least try to be a little less of a gentleman, Blaine,” he said, but his voice wasn't as sharp as he'd have liked it to be. “The men and women on this crew take that as a weakness.”
“So being polite is being weak?” Blaine asked, incredulously.
“I like it,” Kurt said, quickly. “I like your manners. I like that you're kind and honest and the least manipulative person I've ever met-and that includes my fellow stars. It just isn't appreciated so much in this setting.”
There was a moment where their eyes met. There was something soft in Kurt's, something that Blaine couldn't quite understand-something that left him feeling pleasantly warm.
Blaine opened his mouth as if to say something, but Puck clamped a hand down on his shoulder. Blaine hadn't even heard him approach.
“What do you two say to some supper?” he asked, rubbing his hands together. “Roast chicken and something chocolate because the birds on this ship turn into right bitches if you don't give them something sweet.”
Brittany, passing by, quietly informed him that he was being offensive in his gender stereotyping, because the men on the ship were equally as dependent upon their chocolate.
The table they were seated around was massive; Blaine wasn't actually sure how they'd fit inside the cabin. He'd asked Kurt, but Kurt's reply had unhelpfully been “magic."
There were at least twenty men on the crew, and they'd all introduced themselves to Kurt and Blaine, but Blaine had forgotten most of them. He knew that the two men seated at the end of the table (who were strangely affectionate with each other in a way that Blaine thought should've made him uncomfortable, but didn't) were Wes and David, and that the one who spoke pompously and had already begun to dote on Blaine was named Thad, and the blond, bouncy one was Jeff. He knew the two female pirates were Mercedes and Brittany.
Throughout most of the meal, he found himself watching Kurt. There was something about the boy that was riveting. Whether it was because he was a star or because he was just Kurt, Blaine didn't know. He couldn't stop staring at the way the light in his eyes would shift when he tipped his head, the smooth line of his throat when he tipped his head back in a laugh, the way his hands looked with his fingers wrapped around his fork...
Later, when they were both lying in their hammocks, side-by-side, the snores of the crew surrounding them, Blaine asked him a question.
“What's it like up there?”
There was a moment's silence, and Blaine wondered if he was asleep. Then a sound of shifting canvas, and Kurt spoke. “Up where?"
“Where you live. In the sky. What is it like?”
“It's like being with a family,” Kurt said quietly, immediately. “I was surrounded all the time by people I loved, who loved me. I stayed close to my father, of course, because he was the one who understood best.”
“And your mother?” he asked, although he already knew the answer to that one, of course.
“My mother fell from the sky four hundred years ago,” Kurt whispered, his voice going a little hoarse. “I was very young, so I don't remember it much, but I do know that she died down there. My father doesn't like to talk about it very much.”
“Do you think she would've been proud of you?” Blaine asked.
Kurt was silent again. “I think she would've loved you,” he said, answering a question Blaine hadn't even known he desperately wanted the answer to.
After the first meal, Kurt and Blaine often ate alone. They told each other stories-Blaine, snorting with laughter (because, in retrospect, it was pretty funny), told Kurt about getting fired from church choir, and Kurt told him about how, when his aunt was a young girl, she was grounded for nearly two hundred years for trying purposefully to knock herself out of the sky. On occasion, Blaine would succumb to the urge to feed Kurt a forkful of something particularly delicious from his own plate, and the look in Kurt's eyes when he did so always made his stomach tighten almost painfully.
Sometimes they were joined by Mercedes and Brittany. Kurt struck up a quick friendship with the former-they both had similar attitudes about many things, and Blaine enjoyed watching them play off of each other. He never grew close to the woman, choosing instead to spend more time with Brittany. She was peaceful, simple, but intuitive in a way Mercedes wasn't.
He enjoyed spending time with her, because her outlook on life was far more interesting that most peoples'. He knew that in his world, she would've been locked up or at least been kept as a shameful secret by her family, and couldn't fathom why. She was neither crazy, nor unintelligent. Her view of life was simply... different.
But in his world, different had never been a good thing.
“You're thinking hard,” Kurt said, dropping down to sit next to him. Blaine had been sitting cross-legged on the upper deck of the ship, staring pensively out into the open sky ahead.
“What gave me away?” he asked, leaning a little into Kurt's warmth.
“You get that little wrinkle in your brow when you think about something too hard,” Kurt said, passing him a plateful of food. “I've noticed it recently. What are you thinking about?”
“How narrow my world seems to be becoming in comparison to this one,” Blaine frowned, taking a bite of the meat on the plate. “How can you and the other stars even stand to look at my part of the world?”
“There's some beauty to your world that doesn't exist here,” Kurt said quietly, and their eyes met again, and held.
Only for a second, and then Blaine's dropped once more. “I've been meaning to ask you something,” he said, hesitantly.
Kurt merely raised an eyebrow, but his expression was kind.
“Those two men in the crew-Wes and David?”
Kurt looked as if he was fighting back a smile, although Blaine couldn't fathom why.
“Yes?” Kurt said.
“Are they-well-are they... romantically involved?"
Kurt actually laughed out loud, even though Blaine still had no idea what was so amusing.
“Yes,” he said again, pressing his lips together to hold back his laughter.
“And-in that inn, that warlock-I know it wasn't real, but his-he had a husband,” Blaine finished. Kurt's eyes were too kind and understanding all of the sudden, and Blaine had to look away, because this was something he'd struggled with his whole life and how could it be this simple here?
He was surprised to feel a hand land on his arm, and he looked up to Kurt's glowing face (like, literally glowing, Blaine guessed it was a star thing) and bright, bright green eyes (and okay, Blaine wasn't crazy, they'd definitely been blue yesterday). Kurt's voice was very gentle when he spoke.
“Blaine, this world is very different than yours. You lived in a world of ignorance where people are scared of things they cannot understand. Your world is limited-anything but the love between a man and a woman is prohibited. It isn't the same in Stormhold.” His hand slid down to cover Blaine's, and Blaine looked down at it, then back up at Kurt. “I know you've seen some terrible things and people while you've been here, and so have I. But there are some wonderful things about the magical world. On this side of the wall, love is not condemned between two men or two women-it is treated as ordinary. There is nobody here who would view it as any less normal than love between a man and a woman.”
“That's-amazing,” Blaine breathed, and almost without thinking, he turned his palm up under Kurt's hand and laced his fingers through the other man's.
There was a moment, then-a moment in which they just stared at each other. Blaine felt something tug in his stomach, swell in his heart-but Kurt coughed and turned back to his meal, pulling his hand away, before Blaine could figure out what it was.
Puck taught Blaine how to play the piano. There was one in his cabin, just by the window, so that when Blaine got better at playing he could look out across the ocean and trees moving underneath. He was a quick learner-in only days he was composing his own half-pieces of music. They were simple melodies that didn't require much talent, but he was proud of them nonetheless.
One morning, a few days after they'd come aboard Captain Puckerman's ship, Blaine woke early with a tune already in his head. It was more complex than anything he'd yet created, but he knew he had to get to the piano and play it before it left him. He left Kurt (still slumbering peacefully in the hammock beside his, and no, he didn't spend a moment just looking at him and admiring his profile, because that would be strange), and let himself into the Captain's chambers. Puckerman was already awake, and gathering up a pair of swords and his tunic when Blaine walked in.
“May I?” he asked politely, although the answer was always the same.
“Be my guest,” Puck grunted, hoisting a sack of something over his shoulder, and disappeared out the door.
It was afternoon when Blaine finally grew tired of playing the piano in the Captain's cabin. He ventured out, a tune still running through his mind, rubbing the dark from his eyes and blinking in the sudden light of the upper deck.
He heard the clash of swords first, as his eyes adjusted, then saw the two fencing crewmen. Both were shirtless and glistening with sweat-it was clear they'd been dueling for some time in the hot sun.
The darker-skinned one was Captain Puckerman, Blaine saw immediately, and he had a fierce grin on his face as he fought. He had a bold technique-rough, sharp, short. The other was lithe, graceful, smooth. He moved like he was dancing, the muscles in his back shifting with every quick parry, step, and thrust.
Blaine couldn't help but let his eyes run down the man's body, drinking in his long legs and broad shoulders and thin waist. He was beautiful, in both appearance and motion.
The man stood, posture perfect, still as the calm sea below them, then moved forward in a strike that flashed quicker than lightning.
Puck's sword was knocked from his hands, falling to the floor with a clatter.
“Where did you learn to fight like that?” Puck asked, delightedly.
Kurt's breathy voice answered. “My mother.”
Something flew from Blaine's stomach to his throat. He couldn't breathe. It was Kurt?
Puck gazed past Kurt, locking eyes with Blaine, and coughed.
Kurt turned.
Anything Blaine might have been about to say died in his throat.
Kurt's chest was just as glorious as his back-muscled and firm and beautiful. His stomach was tight and lean and smooth, and Blaine was overcome with a very odd and highly inappropriate desire to run his tongue over it, and he had to very forcibly remind himself of Rachel.
He could barely remember what Rachel's face looked like, because here was Kurt in front of him with two spots of color high on his cheeks, a glow to his skin that wasn't entirely human, and eyes bluer than the sky they traveled through and clearer than the ocean they glided above.
“Blaine?” Kurt said, uncertainly.
Blaine cleared his throat, gesturing to the sword dangling from Kurt's hand. “Teach me?"
They learned how to catch lightning, too.
It was a dirty and messy job, and at first Kurt balked. He didn't want to go up on the deck in a rubber raincoat and hat in the middle of a thunderstorm and siphon lightning into a small tube. Forget the hazards it presented, he only had one outfit at the moment and he already had to wash it enough.
Puck tried to talk him out of the cabin, but Kurt had fixed him with an ice-cold glare and Puck had immediately withdrawn. He'd stormed up the stairs, announced that it was “a hopeless cause,” and said that they might as well just start without Kurt.
That was when Blaine disappeared down the stairs, and returned two minutes later with a somewhat disgruntled-looking Kurt in tow. Nobody asked what he'd done to get Kurt to come up with him, although a few crew members traded knowing looks.
(In truth, all it had taken was Blaine's piteous puppy dog eyes and pout for Kurt to roll his eyes, throw his hands in the air, and say “fine”, a wonderfully pretty blush spreading across his face).
Kurt would never admit it, stubborn as he was, but he actually had fun catching lightning with the rest of the crew. He was soaking wet (despite the raincoat), and he had this ever-present fear in the back of his mind that he was going to be struck by lightning at any moment (despite Captain Puckerman's reassurances that it wasn't possible), but it was actually... fun.
Well, it was mostly just because of how excited Blaine got about it. He was like a child, bouncing around the deck of the ship, climbing up the ropes and over the beams and railings like a small, excitable monkey. Kurt hated that he found it so adorable.
Blaine took to lightning immediately, of course. He was a natural, and his enthusiasm and willingness to teach Kurt had Kurt excited about it, too. When they caught their first bolt, Blaine tackled Kurt in a hug.
Kurt let go a lot sooner than he'd have liked to.
“No, hold it like this,” Kurt corrected gently, wrapping his fingers around Blaine's and adjusting his grip on the sword, trying not to let his hand linger.
“Okay, now watch me," he said, and did a twirl-parry-block-thrust combination that he knew would be too complicated for Blaine to follow, but looked like poetry in motion. So he wanted to show off a little. Who would it hurt?
Blaine tried to copy, then gave up, dropping his arm to his side and shooting Kurt a wry smile.
Kurt found himself smiling, the rare kind where he actually showed his teeth. He held up his arm, drawing the sword in tight to his body. “Follow my lead,” he instructed, moving in front of Blaine to demonstrate.
Blaine's eyes immediately dipped down, following the graceful curve of Kurt's shoulders down his spine to his-his eyes snapped upwards again, his heart pounding out a beat in his chest.
Kurt appeared not to have noticed. “Okay, parry,” he said, demonstrating, and the motion was much simpler this time. Blaine copied it with little difficulty.
“Now--” Kurt did a quick step-and-thrust forward, and Blaine followed, a little more clumsily than before.
Kurt sighed, dropping his arm and turning around, his forehead furrowed in thought. “This isn't working right. You're only going to learn the basic moves this way, not how to actually fight."
Blaine watched him with wary eyes, jumping a little as Kurt brandished his sword suddenly.
“Er... what?” Blaine asked, feeling as if he was missing something.
“Fight me,” Kurt said, simply, drawing back into a more conventional stance. “Come on. It's the only way you'll get better."
“But I have no idea how to fence, Kurt,” Blaine said, confused.
“Let your instincts guide you. You'll catch on quickly."
It was slow going-Kurt was obviously very talented, and had to pull back often to keep himself from injuring Blaine when his sword cut too closely. He was patient, though, and understanding, even under the hot, midday sun.
The way he lit up when Blaine parried a thrust of his made it all worth it.
“Hold on,” Kurt said, after a while, and set his sword down. “I'm getting overheated,” he explained, in response to Blaine's questioning look, turned his back to Blaine, and peeled his shirt off.
Blaine groaned, rubbing his hand across his face.
Kurt turned to him, frowning, a questioning look on his face. “Oh-you can take yours off, too, Blaine, if you're getting too hot."
There is no way that Blaine was going to get through this.
Puck and Brittany actually taught Kurt how to dance.
Blaine already knew-he'd learned when he was young. Basic moves, rigid and simple, appropriate for polite company and for church choir, but still dancing. Kurt had no idea how to do it at all. It was something they hadn't done in the sky.
Blaine liked to sit on the rail beside the Captain's cabin and watch Brittany spin Kurt around. He liked to watch the way the boy laughed, his face aglow, as Puck jokingly dipped him back and feigned letting him fall to the deck of the ship.
He liked to look at Kurt.
He didn't like to think about why.