fic: Solar Winds (11/?) Part 1
~~~
“So, when do we get to meet her?” David says out of the blue, clearly trying to throw off his concentration. The three of them are in the courtyard, playing a rather ill-advised game of three-man fire juggling. Starting with one fireball, they bend the ball around between them, periodically adding more fireballs to the mix until one of them fumbles and gets blown up.
Hey, it’s Firebending. Getting singed and/or exploded pretty much comes with the territory.
“What are you talking about?” Blaine says, guiding the fire around his back and passing it to Wes.
“The girl you are so blatantly pining for,” Wes says, spinning the flame around his arm before tossing it to David.
“The one you’re in love with,” David adds, trying to catch him off guard by passing the flame as fast as he can.
“I’m in love?” Blaine asks with a grin. “Awesome! Tell me more.” He slings the flame at Wes, who catches it easily and conjures up a second fireball.
“Don’t play dumb with us,” Wes says, juggling the small sunbursts. “Excellent as you are at that particular emotion…” He arcs both balls to David, who uses some impressive handwork to orbit them around his head.
“You increase the frequency of your midnight escapades threefold, you walk around with this little smile on your face like someone spiked your tea with Si Wong Cactus Juice, and you dance when you think no one is watching,” David easily lists off the rather damning evidence against him, before puffing up his cheeks and blowing the fireballs at Blaine.
Feeling a little cocky, Blaine loops one around his arm and another around his foot, utter nonchalance seared onto his face as he twirls the bright, burning orbs. “Guys, I swear, I am just as lost on this subject as you are. You’ll meet this mystery girl as soon as I do. I can’t wait-she must be amazing for me to fall for her so quickly,” he says, passing his foot-fire up to his arm before taking a deep breath, and breathing a third fireball into the mix. “I hope she likes me.”
When Wes’s face goes slack-jawed, he takes the opportunity to pass all three flames at him. To Wes’s credit, he recovers admirably and only has to lean back a little to keep himself from dropping them or setting himself alight. “When did you learn to do that?” Wes asks, annoyed.
“Dad taught me yesterday,” Blaine replies.
Wes shares a significant glance with David, before conjuring a fourth fireball. “Look, Blaine, I know we tease you about a lot of things, and not without merit, but if you’ve met someone…”
He passes two of the balls to David, who begins juggling them himself. “We just want to make sure you’re keeping decent company.”
“Mostly we want to make sure she isn’t going to abduct you and hold you for ransom,” Wes adds.
“Or worse,” David continues, “convince you to elope.”
In somewhat of a scary moment of synchronization, they each add a fireball to their mix and toss all six of them at Blaine at the same time. The Fire Prince responds by catching and bending them in horizontal orbit around himself, making him look like an inverse solar system-a big planet orbited by several small suns.
“Okay, I’ll admit,” he says, “I have met someone. But we’re not dating. I can’t really tell you any more than that. Just… you know what? You’ll meet him soon enough.”
Of all the reactions Blaine expected to that statement, a fist-pump from Wes was not one of them. “I knew it! It’s a guy! David, you owe me ten silver pieces.”
“Damn it,” David growls.
“…what are you guys talking about?” Blaine asks, still swinging the fire in circles.
David continues to pout. “Wes said it was a guy, and not a girl. He thinks you had the biggest crush on that boy who runs the aviar-”
He abruptly cuts himself off as he notices Blaine’s shocked expression, but it’s too late-the Fire Prince’s lapse in concentration causes all the objects in his orbit to spiral off in random directions. Wes throws himself to the ground just in time to avoid losing his eyebrows. The three boys wince in unison as the projectiles impact various objects and detonate. Not enough to cause any serious damage, but definitely enough to piss off a lot of people depending on where those landed.
“…we have to find a better place to practice this,” Wes sighs.
~~~
The master bedroom looks like the victim of a rogue closet bomber. Every surface is covered in pants, robes, tunics, shirts, vests, belts, sashes, scarves, and even hats. “Kurt,” Mercedes says. “Honey, what did that closet ever do to you?”
“It stole my sense of style!” Kurt replies from within as several more articles of clothing fly gracefully from the opened doorway.
“I don’t think you’re gonna find it in there,” she comments easily. “Probably flew out along with the… girdle?” Mercedes says, a little baffled by the strange item hanging off one of the bedposts.
“OH MY LA,” Kurt shouts, rushing out of the closet. “That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for!”
The Earthbender can’t muster up more than a quirked eyebrow in response to that.
“Now, I just need to find that purple feather boa I tossed out… I threw it pretty hard, but it’s not terribly aerodynamic, so it probably-”
“INTERVENTION,” Mercedes declares, dragging him out of the room by the back of his collar.
“What,” Kurt asks, “am I doing that requires intervening, exactly?”
“Kurt, honey, I know you worship at the shrine of Avatar Gaga and all, but seriously-you’re supposed to be trying to blend, boo. Feathers, fabulous as you might look in them, is a shortcut to all the negative attention you could ever want from these people.”
Kurt sighs. “I know, I just… I want to wear something that… you know, highlights me. I don’t want Blaine to think I’m drab, or dull, or uninteresting, or-”
“He doesn’t think any of that,” Mercedes says. “And if he does, he’s blind as a wolfbat and doesn’t deserve your time anyway, do you understand?”
The Avatar takes moment to calm his proverbial tits, before nodding. “Okay. Yes, I understand.” He waits a second before adding. “I’m… not sure I can trust my own fashion sense right now. But I will jump naked into polar waters before I allow someone else to dress me… could you maybe just… give me some advice?” he finishes sheepishly.
She takes a quick look at him. “I’d go for sleek. Something smooth and just tight enough to emphasize your curves. ‘Cause sweetie, you have some fly curves.”
“Sleek, and strong,” Kurt says, nodding. “Like a tigerseal.” He tries an experimental growl. “Rrrrrawr,” he growls, clawing at Mercedes in a way that seems less tiger and more playful kitten.
“You’re gonna eat that boy alive,” she smiles. “Now go put your stripes on.”
Kurt answers with an excited hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, before dashing back into the room to change.
When he emerges, he is wearing a sharp red-and-gold ensemble that is surprisingly form-fitting, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first glance. It’s not too attention-grabbing for those at a distance, but once you’re close enough, you see it much more clearly, and… well, what has been seen cannot be unseen.
“Now you’re making me all hot-and-bothered,” she teases.
“Mercedes, you are the absolute best. You are a diamond among coals,” the Avatar whispers in her ear as he grabs her in a hug. “Okay,” he breathes as he breaks away, taking a second to gather up some spare breaths to make up for all the ones Blaine is inevitably going to take away. “Wish me lu-”
A cacophony of smashing, scraping, breaking, and scrambling suddenly echoes up from downstairs. “It wasn’t us!” Finn says, immediately defusing all suspicion with his mad denial skills.
“I’ll give you something better than luck,” Mercedes says. “I’ll drag blockhead and gravelbutt out of the house and make sure you and His Royal Hotness have plenty of alone time. Get that slow burn,” she adds with a wink.
“May La and Tui bless you and shower you with delicious seafood forever,” Kurt exhales with wide, grateful eyes. “Alright… I’m going.”
“Knock him dead, boo,” Mercedes smiles.
~~~
“Blaine, I just don’t understand it,” David sighs. After cleaning up the minor shit-fire they started, it was close to go time, so the three of them have retired to Blaine’s room so the Prince can prepare to part.
“What, that I like guys?” the Prince asks pointedly.
“No, that you fell for the bird guy of all people!” David is indignant.
Blaine’s blush comes too hot and fast for him to hide completely. “It was just a crush. He had… interesting hair.”
“Interesting? Interesting! A baboon-boar’s butt is interesting, but that doesn’t mean I want to put my lips on it,” David scoffs.
Meanwhile, Wes is sitting to the side, grinning like he won the lottery, and the prize was his own island populated entirely by sex-starved warrior women. “David is just jealous.”
“I am not,” he says in a pout so obvious, his envy could be seen from a mountaintop.
“You are! Your entire reasoning behind your ridiculous idea that Blaine couldn’t like boys was that he had never had a crush on you. You wounded his ego, Blaine.”
“Awww, David. Don’t feel bad. I totally love you… just, in a…” Blaine pauses in the process of getting dressed to search for a good way to put this. “…vertical manner.”
“Vertical?” David asks.
“As opposed to horizontal,” Wes clarifies lasciviously.
“Well, there’s a mental image I will spend the night diligently scrubbing away,” David shudders.
“I mean it. You guys are like… my big brothers,” he says, charm smile set to full blast.
“And you are the annoying little brother we cannot legally give up for adoption,” Wes says fondly. “Blaine, I don’t care who you like…”
“I question your taste. Loudly,” David interjects.
“…but I maintain an extravagant amount of concern for mine and David’s personal safety should your father ever learn about this.”
Having finished dressing in his casual ‘civilian’ clothes, Blaine pops out of the closet and regards his two best friends carefully. “Guys, I’m telling you right now-if tonight goes the way I plan, we will never have to do this again.”
Wes and David look like they’ve just seen a pack of lion squirrels tearing apart a beloved family pet. “Oh no,” Wes gulps.
“He has a plan,” David says, looking halfway between barfing and fleeing (and quite likely to attempt both at once, overachiever that he is).
“You laugh,” Blaine says, jutting a finger at them as he heads toward the window. “But just you wait…”
He skitters up the wall, taking a moment to pose dramatically in the window before leaping out into the evening light. “Tonight is going to be spectacular.”
~~~
He exits the same way, every time. There’s a specific section of the outer wall that encloses the Palace grounds that drops into a small patch of land with a few trees on the edge of a small lake. The Prince thinks that if he times it right, no one will notice him drop from the high wall and land easily in the tree.
He is wrong.
Santana’s smirk as she watches him slide to the ground could make a man’s heart burst out of his chest and run away screaming. The messenger hawk she rented already has her pre-written message in its claws, so all she has to do is open the door to its cage. “Go. Lady Sue Sylvester, Chi-Ryu Academy.”
With that, she turns to her snoozing roommate, rolls her eyes, pulls out her whip and lashes it so that it snaps right next to his head.
The sound Puck makes upon being woken up fits squarely in the area between a squeal and a yelp.
“Wake up,” Santana orders. “We’ve got a Royal Brat to bust open, and we need to keep track of him.”
“I’m up,” Puck grunts. “’bout time I got some action. The Hills know I’m not getting any from you.”
The dark-haired girl rolls her eyes. They can’t strike until they get the word, but she has no doubt it’ll be coming soon. It won’t be long before the bird arrives in the Lady’s office with the message that will tip the first domino.
The fairy has flown.
~~~
The rapidly fading sunlight is totally throwing off his color scheme. There is only so much orange light can do for someone. Kurt is doing his level best to rock the look, making up for the unflattering lighting by taking on a bad-boy slouch underneath an awning, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. It’s intended to say ‘don’t mess with me,’ but it really comes across more as ‘pouting because I’ve been stood up.’ Which is ridiculous. He knows Blaine can’t sneak out until sunset at the earliest, and it probably takes him a while to walk here. There is no reason for him to feel so put out.
It’s just…
The longer he stands here waiting, the longer he is alone with his thoughts. And his thoughts, apparently, have every intention of sabotaging the evening in a variety of colorful and painful ways before it even begins. What if he says something stupid? What if he starts choking on a breadstick and accidentally spits food in Blaine’s face? What if he loses control during their training and accidentally burns all of Blaine’s hair off? What if Blaine trips and falls during his crazy rooftop antics and breaks his neck and dies before he even gets here?
“…I’m telling you, any minute now, the Fire Lord is going to start rounding us up to be judged. I can just feel it!”
“It’s all over the city. The Avatar has come to judge us, and the Fire Lord is helping him…”
…what if he is outed as the Avatar?
The tension in the air is thick enough to gag on. Everywhere he looks, the people seem on-edge and suspicious, jittery and nervous, irritable and snappish. Not unlike himself before a date, really. Not-date. Whatever.
His thoughts come to a screeching halt when he feels a warm shoulder press into his own. He knows who it is without even looking, but look he does-and like the shadows faced with the sunrise, all of Kurt’s dark thoughts melt away and vanish to the other side of the world.
“Hey,” Blaine says.
“Hey yourself,” Kurt replies.
And when Blaine smiles at him, all he can think is that the wait was worth it. Nothing in the world could darken his day now...
~~~
On to Part 2!
“So, when do we get to meet her?” David says out of the blue, clearly trying to throw off his concentration. The three of them are in the courtyard, playing a rather ill-advised game of three-man fire juggling. Starting with one fireball, they bend the ball around between them, periodically adding more fireballs to the mix until one of them fumbles and gets blown up.
Hey, it’s Firebending. Getting singed and/or exploded pretty much comes with the territory.
“What are you talking about?” Blaine says, guiding the fire around his back and passing it to Wes.
“The girl you are so blatantly pining for,” Wes says, spinning the flame around his arm before tossing it to David.
“The one you’re in love with,” David adds, trying to catch him off guard by passing the flame as fast as he can.
“I’m in love?” Blaine asks with a grin. “Awesome! Tell me more.” He slings the flame at Wes, who catches it easily and conjures up a second fireball.
“Don’t play dumb with us,” Wes says, juggling the small sunbursts. “Excellent as you are at that particular emotion…” He arcs both balls to David, who uses some impressive handwork to orbit them around his head.
“You increase the frequency of your midnight escapades threefold, you walk around with this little smile on your face like someone spiked your tea with Si Wong Cactus Juice, and you dance when you think no one is watching,” David easily lists off the rather damning evidence against him, before puffing up his cheeks and blowing the fireballs at Blaine.
Feeling a little cocky, Blaine loops one around his arm and another around his foot, utter nonchalance seared onto his face as he twirls the bright, burning orbs. “Guys, I swear, I am just as lost on this subject as you are. You’ll meet this mystery girl as soon as I do. I can’t wait-she must be amazing for me to fall for her so quickly,” he says, passing his foot-fire up to his arm before taking a deep breath, and breathing a third fireball into the mix. “I hope she likes me.”
When Wes’s face goes slack-jawed, he takes the opportunity to pass all three flames at him. To Wes’s credit, he recovers admirably and only has to lean back a little to keep himself from dropping them or setting himself alight. “When did you learn to do that?” Wes asks, annoyed.
“Dad taught me yesterday,” Blaine replies.
Wes shares a significant glance with David, before conjuring a fourth fireball. “Look, Blaine, I know we tease you about a lot of things, and not without merit, but if you’ve met someone…”
He passes two of the balls to David, who begins juggling them himself. “We just want to make sure you’re keeping decent company.”
“Mostly we want to make sure she isn’t going to abduct you and hold you for ransom,” Wes adds.
“Or worse,” David continues, “convince you to elope.”
In somewhat of a scary moment of synchronization, they each add a fireball to their mix and toss all six of them at Blaine at the same time. The Fire Prince responds by catching and bending them in horizontal orbit around himself, making him look like an inverse solar system-a big planet orbited by several small suns.
“Okay, I’ll admit,” he says, “I have met someone. But we’re not dating. I can’t really tell you any more than that. Just… you know what? You’ll meet him soon enough.”
Of all the reactions Blaine expected to that statement, a fist-pump from Wes was not one of them. “I knew it! It’s a guy! David, you owe me ten silver pieces.”
“Damn it,” David growls.
“…what are you guys talking about?” Blaine asks, still swinging the fire in circles.
David continues to pout. “Wes said it was a guy, and not a girl. He thinks you had the biggest crush on that boy who runs the aviar-”
He abruptly cuts himself off as he notices Blaine’s shocked expression, but it’s too late-the Fire Prince’s lapse in concentration causes all the objects in his orbit to spiral off in random directions. Wes throws himself to the ground just in time to avoid losing his eyebrows. The three boys wince in unison as the projectiles impact various objects and detonate. Not enough to cause any serious damage, but definitely enough to piss off a lot of people depending on where those landed.
“…we have to find a better place to practice this,” Wes sighs.
~~~
The master bedroom looks like the victim of a rogue closet bomber. Every surface is covered in pants, robes, tunics, shirts, vests, belts, sashes, scarves, and even hats. “Kurt,” Mercedes says. “Honey, what did that closet ever do to you?”
“It stole my sense of style!” Kurt replies from within as several more articles of clothing fly gracefully from the opened doorway.
“I don’t think you’re gonna find it in there,” she comments easily. “Probably flew out along with the… girdle?” Mercedes says, a little baffled by the strange item hanging off one of the bedposts.
“OH MY LA,” Kurt shouts, rushing out of the closet. “That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for!”
The Earthbender can’t muster up more than a quirked eyebrow in response to that.
“Now, I just need to find that purple feather boa I tossed out… I threw it pretty hard, but it’s not terribly aerodynamic, so it probably-”
“INTERVENTION,” Mercedes declares, dragging him out of the room by the back of his collar.
“What,” Kurt asks, “am I doing that requires intervening, exactly?”
“Kurt, honey, I know you worship at the shrine of Avatar Gaga and all, but seriously-you’re supposed to be trying to blend, boo. Feathers, fabulous as you might look in them, is a shortcut to all the negative attention you could ever want from these people.”
Kurt sighs. “I know, I just… I want to wear something that… you know, highlights me. I don’t want Blaine to think I’m drab, or dull, or uninteresting, or-”
“He doesn’t think any of that,” Mercedes says. “And if he does, he’s blind as a wolfbat and doesn’t deserve your time anyway, do you understand?”
The Avatar takes moment to calm his proverbial tits, before nodding. “Okay. Yes, I understand.” He waits a second before adding. “I’m… not sure I can trust my own fashion sense right now. But I will jump naked into polar waters before I allow someone else to dress me… could you maybe just… give me some advice?” he finishes sheepishly.
She takes a quick look at him. “I’d go for sleek. Something smooth and just tight enough to emphasize your curves. ‘Cause sweetie, you have some fly curves.”
“Sleek, and strong,” Kurt says, nodding. “Like a tigerseal.” He tries an experimental growl. “Rrrrrawr,” he growls, clawing at Mercedes in a way that seems less tiger and more playful kitten.
“You’re gonna eat that boy alive,” she smiles. “Now go put your stripes on.”
Kurt answers with an excited hug and a quick kiss on the cheek, before dashing back into the room to change.
When he emerges, he is wearing a sharp red-and-gold ensemble that is surprisingly form-fitting, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first glance. It’s not too attention-grabbing for those at a distance, but once you’re close enough, you see it much more clearly, and… well, what has been seen cannot be unseen.
“Now you’re making me all hot-and-bothered,” she teases.
“Mercedes, you are the absolute best. You are a diamond among coals,” the Avatar whispers in her ear as he grabs her in a hug. “Okay,” he breathes as he breaks away, taking a second to gather up some spare breaths to make up for all the ones Blaine is inevitably going to take away. “Wish me lu-”
A cacophony of smashing, scraping, breaking, and scrambling suddenly echoes up from downstairs. “It wasn’t us!” Finn says, immediately defusing all suspicion with his mad denial skills.
“I’ll give you something better than luck,” Mercedes says. “I’ll drag blockhead and gravelbutt out of the house and make sure you and His Royal Hotness have plenty of alone time. Get that slow burn,” she adds with a wink.
“May La and Tui bless you and shower you with delicious seafood forever,” Kurt exhales with wide, grateful eyes. “Alright… I’m going.”
“Knock him dead, boo,” Mercedes smiles.
~~~
“Blaine, I just don’t understand it,” David sighs. After cleaning up the minor shit-fire they started, it was close to go time, so the three of them have retired to Blaine’s room so the Prince can prepare to part.
“What, that I like guys?” the Prince asks pointedly.
“No, that you fell for the bird guy of all people!” David is indignant.
Blaine’s blush comes too hot and fast for him to hide completely. “It was just a crush. He had… interesting hair.”
“Interesting? Interesting! A baboon-boar’s butt is interesting, but that doesn’t mean I want to put my lips on it,” David scoffs.
Meanwhile, Wes is sitting to the side, grinning like he won the lottery, and the prize was his own island populated entirely by sex-starved warrior women. “David is just jealous.”
“I am not,” he says in a pout so obvious, his envy could be seen from a mountaintop.
“You are! Your entire reasoning behind your ridiculous idea that Blaine couldn’t like boys was that he had never had a crush on you. You wounded his ego, Blaine.”
“Awww, David. Don’t feel bad. I totally love you… just, in a…” Blaine pauses in the process of getting dressed to search for a good way to put this. “…vertical manner.”
“Vertical?” David asks.
“As opposed to horizontal,” Wes clarifies lasciviously.
“Well, there’s a mental image I will spend the night diligently scrubbing away,” David shudders.
“I mean it. You guys are like… my big brothers,” he says, charm smile set to full blast.
“And you are the annoying little brother we cannot legally give up for adoption,” Wes says fondly. “Blaine, I don’t care who you like…”
“I question your taste. Loudly,” David interjects.
“…but I maintain an extravagant amount of concern for mine and David’s personal safety should your father ever learn about this.”
Having finished dressing in his casual ‘civilian’ clothes, Blaine pops out of the closet and regards his two best friends carefully. “Guys, I’m telling you right now-if tonight goes the way I plan, we will never have to do this again.”
Wes and David look like they’ve just seen a pack of lion squirrels tearing apart a beloved family pet. “Oh no,” Wes gulps.
“He has a plan,” David says, looking halfway between barfing and fleeing (and quite likely to attempt both at once, overachiever that he is).
“You laugh,” Blaine says, jutting a finger at them as he heads toward the window. “But just you wait…”
He skitters up the wall, taking a moment to pose dramatically in the window before leaping out into the evening light. “Tonight is going to be spectacular.”
~~~
He exits the same way, every time. There’s a specific section of the outer wall that encloses the Palace grounds that drops into a small patch of land with a few trees on the edge of a small lake. The Prince thinks that if he times it right, no one will notice him drop from the high wall and land easily in the tree.
He is wrong.
Santana’s smirk as she watches him slide to the ground could make a man’s heart burst out of his chest and run away screaming. The messenger hawk she rented already has her pre-written message in its claws, so all she has to do is open the door to its cage. “Go. Lady Sue Sylvester, Chi-Ryu Academy.”
With that, she turns to her snoozing roommate, rolls her eyes, pulls out her whip and lashes it so that it snaps right next to his head.
The sound Puck makes upon being woken up fits squarely in the area between a squeal and a yelp.
“Wake up,” Santana orders. “We’ve got a Royal Brat to bust open, and we need to keep track of him.”
“I’m up,” Puck grunts. “’bout time I got some action. The Hills know I’m not getting any from you.”
The dark-haired girl rolls her eyes. They can’t strike until they get the word, but she has no doubt it’ll be coming soon. It won’t be long before the bird arrives in the Lady’s office with the message that will tip the first domino.
The fairy has flown.
~~~
The rapidly fading sunlight is totally throwing off his color scheme. There is only so much orange light can do for someone. Kurt is doing his level best to rock the look, making up for the unflattering lighting by taking on a bad-boy slouch underneath an awning, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. It’s intended to say ‘don’t mess with me,’ but it really comes across more as ‘pouting because I’ve been stood up.’ Which is ridiculous. He knows Blaine can’t sneak out until sunset at the earliest, and it probably takes him a while to walk here. There is no reason for him to feel so put out.
It’s just…
The longer he stands here waiting, the longer he is alone with his thoughts. And his thoughts, apparently, have every intention of sabotaging the evening in a variety of colorful and painful ways before it even begins. What if he says something stupid? What if he starts choking on a breadstick and accidentally spits food in Blaine’s face? What if he loses control during their training and accidentally burns all of Blaine’s hair off? What if Blaine trips and falls during his crazy rooftop antics and breaks his neck and dies before he even gets here?
“…I’m telling you, any minute now, the Fire Lord is going to start rounding us up to be judged. I can just feel it!”
“It’s all over the city. The Avatar has come to judge us, and the Fire Lord is helping him…”
…what if he is outed as the Avatar?
The tension in the air is thick enough to gag on. Everywhere he looks, the people seem on-edge and suspicious, jittery and nervous, irritable and snappish. Not unlike himself before a date, really. Not-date. Whatever.
His thoughts come to a screeching halt when he feels a warm shoulder press into his own. He knows who it is without even looking, but look he does-and like the shadows faced with the sunrise, all of Kurt’s dark thoughts melt away and vanish to the other side of the world.
“Hey,” Blaine says.
“Hey yourself,” Kurt replies.
And when Blaine smiles at him, all he can think is that the wait was worth it. Nothing in the world could darken his day now...
~~~
On to Part 2!