FIC: Harry Potter and the Boy From Lima Epilogue
Part 1a | 1b | 2a | 2b | 2c | Epilogue
“There! That one.”
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Kurt asks doubtfully, but he turns down the narrow lane that Blaine spotted in their headlights anyway. They're at least forty miles south of Columbus, and it's almost nine on a Thursday night; reading week curfew may not be until eleven thirty, but it took them more than an hour to get here, so they're probably going to be sneaking back in at one in the morning again. It should disturb Kurt that he's getting used to that.
“She said the third left off township highway 220R,” Blaine reports dutifully, and he's got his texts pulled up on his cell phone, so he's probably checking just to be sure.
It's probably the right place. It's an empty hilltop only accessible by dirt road. It's not the sort of place Kurt would be caught for anybody but his boyfriend, but according to Blaine's stories, it is a Tilda sort of place.
There isn't exactly a parking space of any kind around, so Kurt just pulls off to the edge of the road and pulls the car into park. “Is she going to try to curse me again for showing up with you before she realizes who I am?”
“Hey, when two people show up to a one-on-one session, it's her job to be paranoid,” Blaine points out.
“Not really sure how else you were supposed to get there,” Kurt grumbles, for about the dozenth time. They'd been all the way in Lima that time when Tilda had texted Blaine about his next unscheduled magic lesson. Kurt may love his boyfriend-not that he's said so yet-but there's only so far he'll trust Blaine alone with his car.
“Hey,” says Blaine, and turns around to take Kurt's hand from the gearshift and hold it between both of his. “She'll be fine. It's your birthday. If I can't take my boyfriend to New York on his eighteenth birthday, then at least I can take him to the middle of rural Ohio and show him something cool.”
Rachel called Kurt at 8:00 this morning, going on about lunch dates and running into Patty LuPone and standing on the sidewalk outside the Gershwin theater. It's probably a good thing Kurt doesn't have magic powers, since the force of his own will isn't enough for him to strangle New Directions' lead soloist from a thousand miles away.
He'll get there. With everything that's been turned upside-down so far since spring, that's really the only thing Kurt hasn't ever doubted. Blaine's coming too, if Tilda will give him the chance.
Which means that Kurt really wants to stay on the good side of the only woman he secretly suspects could go toe to toe with Sue Sylvester and at least tie, but, well. For one thing, she keeps texting Blaine at the end of dates-she says it's easier for him to sneak back into the Dalton dorms when he has a legitimate reason to be out in the first place. For another...well, it's magic. He can't be blamed for actually wanting to see a little of it.
And Blaine wants him here, which is romantic enough in its way to make Kurt's heart flutter a little, so he smiles, and says, “I suppose then we'd better go find her, then, shouldn't we?”
There's not much of a path; they hold hands to keep their balance and trudge around the hill in the moonlight. There's not another car in sight, and Kurt's about to say something to that effect when a glowing white spark lights up thirty feet down the other side of the hill and he remembers: right, magic. It's a little steeper climbing down than up, and they skid on pebbles a few times, nearly tripping, before they come to a grinning stop close enough to see Tilda through the dark.
“And I see you brought the Muggle,” Tilda says dryly by way of greeting.
“Technically Kurt brought me,” Blaine says, and tugs Kurt in close by the hand he still hasn't dropped. “What are we working on tonight?”
“Well, given that you're firing corporeal Patronuses at full-strength again, I think it's time we moved on to more advanced evasive maneuvers,” Tilda says, and Blaine nods seriously.
“All right,” he says. “I can do that.”
“Where should I stand?” asks Kurt. 'Evasive maneuvers' sounds like Blaine's going to be dodging things, and Kurt is not a big fan of running, particularly when he's technically only here as a spectator.
“Anywhere's fine,” Tilda says carelessly.
“Um...are you sure about that?” Tilda hasn't seemed to want him dead for the past couple of months, anyway. She nods.
“He's not going to be evading stuff on the ground anyway,” she says. “So it doesn't really matter.”
“Wait,” says Blaine. “I'm not?”
“You boys are crap at reconnaissance,” she informs them, and bends down to pick up something lying just next to and behind her feet.
At first Kurt thinks it's just a branch, but that doesn't explain the way Blaine's hand tightens painfully around his own. Then he sees the bristles at one end.
“Tilda,” says Blaine. “That's a broom.”
“And I was clearly way off on that reconnaissance thing,” she says. “So mount up. I want to see if your aerial maneuvering's as good as you say it was.”
“Tilda, I...” Blaine seems frozen, staring, so Kurt takes it upon himself to let go of Blaine's hand and give him a little push.
“Go show off,” Kurt says.
It nudges Blaine into taking the broomstick, almost reverently, from Tilda's hands. He holds it out next to himself, letting the tail droop almost down to the ground.
“It's just an old Jetstream 550, but it'll clock a little over a hundred if you handle it right,” she's explaining, but Blaine doesn't really seem to be paying attention to her at all. “Don't get more than a hundred yards up, and don't go crashing it, it's got to go back to its owner in the morning.”
“Up,” says Blaine, and the tail of the broom jerks upright to sit horizontally in his grasp.
He's not moving, though, so Kurt leans forward and kisses him, once, just on the cheek. “Go for it,” he says.
Blaine swings a leg over the broom, bends his knees...
...and Kurt's staggering backwards from a sudden rush of wind from out of nowhere, no Blaine to be seen.
“Is he...” Kurt says, looking around wildly.
“Huh,” says Tilda. Kurt glances over, and tries to follow her line of sight up into the night sky. “Out of practice or not, he's actually still pretty good at that.”
Blaine is a darkened blur streaking across the stars, a slightly different shade of black than the midnight-blue of the sky, moving so fast Kurt's eyes can barely keep up. He races towards the tree line and wheels around just as he gets there, turning fast and sharply enough to make Kurt wince, just thinking about G-forces. Then it's up, up, up, surely higher than Tilda's hundred-yard limit, until Kurt can barely see him at all.
“It doesn't seem like the safest thing he's ever done,” Kurt says.
“The broom's got a little bit of inertial dampening so he doesn't kill himself on the turns, and I've got my wand if he falls,” says Tilda. “Not that he will. He's having way too much fun up there to come down that fast.”
A split second later, Kurt almost corrects her, because the dark speck of Blaine has started getting bigger so quickly he must've fallen off his broom-but no, it's too fast, and the line of descent is angled slightly towards the bottom of the hill, and now he's close enough for Kurt to make out his shape, crouched low over the handle of the broom, streaking down to the ground at just over a hundred miles an hour, and Kurt grabs for Tilda's wrist because he's going to crash, he's going to-
Blaine pulls out of his dive at the last possible moment, rocketing back upwards at speeds Kurt's pretty sure that broom was not made to produce. He pulls to a stop maybe sixty feet up in the air, and then the broom slowly settles back down towards the earth while Kurt's heart slowly settles back down from his throat.
“You're insane,” Kurt says, when Blaine's feet finally touch the ground and he can collect himself enough to speak again.
“Three years off a broomstick, and you go right in for a Wronski Feint,” says Tilda. “I'm with Kurt.”
Blaine is grinning ear to ear, so wide it looks like he might split something. It's annoying, because Kurt really wants to yell at him, but he can't actually object properly to anything that makes Blaine smile like that. “For a real Wronski Feint I would've needed to come at least ten feet farther down. And somebody else would have to be up there chasing me. Do I pass aerial evasion?”
“You haven't actually evaded anything yet,” Tilda points out. “Just wait until I start sending Stunning spells up after you and counting how long it takes for you to fall.”
“Are you kidding?” Kurt asks, and Tilda glances over at him with a shrug.
“I'd catch him,” she says.
“That was amazing,” says Blaine, and he's beaming so hard they probably don't even need Tilda's lit-up wand to see through the darkness, so Kurt can't help but smile back.
“I'm glad you're enjoying yourself,” Kurt says sincerely. That's when Blaine gets the dangerous look in his eye.
“Hey Tilda, how much would this broom carry?” he asks. Kurt isn't sure why, exactly, but Tilda blinks and something in her expression shifts sly, too.
“They usually get pretty sluggish if you try to load them up past 200 pounds, but all you really need is a basic featherweight charm,” she says. “You do remember how to do one of those, right?”
“Um...” says Blaine.
“Never mind, I'll do it,” she says, and then she levels the still-glowing tip of her wand at Kurt. “Otherwise you'll give him the relative weight density of helium and you'll have to go up after him on the broom just so he doesn't float away. Hold still.”
“I'm sorry, what?” Kurt asks flatly. Blaine steps forward, catches Kurt's eye all pleading and earnest.
“Pleeeease?” he says. “It's amazing. You'll love it.”
“You want me to go up there, with you, on that...that thing, while you do loop-de-loops and roller coaster dives and who knows what else?” Kurt asks. Kurt is not afraid of heights. He's also not suicidal. There's a difference.
“I won't let you fall,” Blaine says seriously. “I promise. You can hold onto me as tight as you want.”
Kurt really wants to say 'no'. He really does, because straddling an incredibly painful-looking wood bar while hanging in midair half a football field off the ground sounds about as close to his idea of a good time as clearance day at Target, but, well. He's a sucker. He can't resist his boyfriend's pleading face.
“If you promise to go slow,” Kurt says, raising a warning finger. Blaine just grins.
“Go for it, Tilda,” he says.
A moment later, Kurt finds himself feeling...lighter, by some significant number of pounds. He doesn't think he's at any risk of floating away, but he could definitely get enough air time to manage that standing double 360 layout Coach Sylvester was always trying to get the Cheerios to do. Blaine catches his hand a moment later.
“Come on,” he says. “Here, get on behind me so I can see where we're going and hold on to my waist.” Gingerly, Kurt swings one of his newly-lightened legs over the broom stick, then, even more gingerly, settles down.
It's...surprisingly comfortable, actually. “Cushioning Charm,” Tilda says, and Kurt glances over in surprise. “Standard on all models.”
“I can imagine why,” Kurt says, wrapping his arms carefully around his boyfriend's body. He's just a little bit taller than Blaine, just enough to tuck his chin over Blaine's shoulder and see where they're going. Not that there's much to see, in the dark, but if they're going to crash into something and die Kurt supposes he'd rather see it coming.
“All right, you ready?” Blaine asks, and Kurt tightens his grip.
“Let's go,” he says, and Blaine pushes off the ground.
They don't rocket up into the sky like Blaine had earlier; Blaine's clearly going slow for Kurt's sake. It's nice of him, particularly in light of his daredevil feats earlier, and they start off with what Kurt assumes is supposed to be a leisurely loop of the clearing around the hill. Of course, they're three stories up off the ground, and if they fall there's nothing at the bottom of their landing but a sharp splat, but Blaine is reassuringly solid pressed up all against Kurt's front.
Blaine leans forward, just a little, and Kurt leans with him, and the broom underneath them begins to pick up speed. The wind is whipping at their faces, warm and moist on an Ohio spring night, smelling of green growth and upcoming summer. They zip over the car and bank right, back around towards the hill again, and Kurt is surprised to feel the smile growing on his face.
“You ready for something a little more exciting?” Blaine asks, and Kurt nods.
“Show me,” he says, and Blaine pulls back on the front of the broom and sends them zooming up into the sky.
It's a little like the building thrill of a roller coaster, only instead of clanking metal and screaming children, Kurt has the quiet whipping of the wind and the distant buzz of cicadas, and his boyfriend tight in his arms. It's not as dark as it seems like it should be up here, half a moon and a million stars just enough for Kurt to look to the right and see the side of Blaine's grin when they come to a sudden halt, dozens of yards above the top of the hill.
“All right,” says Blaine. “You want to try a dive?”
“Not like before,” Kurt says warningly, and Blaine nods. Kurt feels it against the side of his head more than sees it, in the dark.
“Not as steep,” he promises. “We'll head down towards that clump of trees there.” Kurt follows the line of Blaine's moonlit finger down towards an irregular, slightly darker splotch on the ground, far enough away for a sane kind of angle of descent.
“All right,” says Kurt, resettling himself on the broom and feeling himself start to match Blaine's grin with his own in anticipation. “Go.”
An instant later, they're dropping, nearly straight down, the broom falling too fast for Kurt's stomach to keep up with it. He swears into the wind, digging his fingers into Blaine's side, while Blaine just laughs, wild and free, and pulls them swooping upwards into a more controlled dive. It's incredible, the feeling of nothing underneath, of no limits, not speed or gravity or anything at all. Blaine is still laughing, and Kurt finds himself whooping along, leaning farther forward, pushing them even faster towards the low dark sprawl of the ground.
“Blaine, pull up!” he says, but they're already evening out, zipping on a level course towards the little copse at least two or three times as fast as their earlier circles of the hillside. The trees are coming up fast, but Blaine banks a hard right. Kurt leans into it with him, the rush of it all making him tingle from head to toe, and all right, he can see why Blaine loves this. He really can.
“Blaine,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the wind, even though Blaine's ear is only inches from his mouth. “We're defying gravity.”
Blaine laughs, and screw you, Rachel Berry and the Gershwin theater, Kurt has the real thing, right here in Ohio. And nobody is ever going to bring this down.
“I love you,” says Blaine, and Kurt's whole body goes so electric with surprise that for a split second, he's completely sure he's going to lose his grip and fall off the broom.
He clutches at Blaine's stomach, probably harder than he should, and oh shit, what kind of boyfriend answers a declaration of love by grabbing you that hard around the stomach, and Kurt hasn't said anything yet, and now it's going to be awkward because he still hasn't said anything, and they're going to run into that tree-
Blaine swerves around the tree, and somehow, impossibly, Kurt finds his breath again. “I love you, too,” he promises, right into Blaine's ear, and hopes that Blaine doesn't need to be looking him in the eye to know he means it.
“You know,” Blaine says, circling the back side of the tree and pointing them back toward the hill, “it's really been a pretty good year.”
Kurt smiles ruefully in the dark, and can't help but think about just what exactly this past year entailed, for him. Then he presses himself up, warm and solid against his boyfriend's back as they fly on through the night.
“You know,” he says honestly. “It really has.”
*****
Well! It's been quite the ride. Those of you left wondering about loose ends... might find this interesting. *cackle*
“There! That one.”
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Kurt asks doubtfully, but he turns down the narrow lane that Blaine spotted in their headlights anyway. They're at least forty miles south of Columbus, and it's almost nine on a Thursday night; reading week curfew may not be until eleven thirty, but it took them more than an hour to get here, so they're probably going to be sneaking back in at one in the morning again. It should disturb Kurt that he's getting used to that.
“She said the third left off township highway 220R,” Blaine reports dutifully, and he's got his texts pulled up on his cell phone, so he's probably checking just to be sure.
It's probably the right place. It's an empty hilltop only accessible by dirt road. It's not the sort of place Kurt would be caught for anybody but his boyfriend, but according to Blaine's stories, it is a Tilda sort of place.
There isn't exactly a parking space of any kind around, so Kurt just pulls off to the edge of the road and pulls the car into park. “Is she going to try to curse me again for showing up with you before she realizes who I am?”
“Hey, when two people show up to a one-on-one session, it's her job to be paranoid,” Blaine points out.
“Not really sure how else you were supposed to get there,” Kurt grumbles, for about the dozenth time. They'd been all the way in Lima that time when Tilda had texted Blaine about his next unscheduled magic lesson. Kurt may love his boyfriend-not that he's said so yet-but there's only so far he'll trust Blaine alone with his car.
“Hey,” says Blaine, and turns around to take Kurt's hand from the gearshift and hold it between both of his. “She'll be fine. It's your birthday. If I can't take my boyfriend to New York on his eighteenth birthday, then at least I can take him to the middle of rural Ohio and show him something cool.”
Rachel called Kurt at 8:00 this morning, going on about lunch dates and running into Patty LuPone and standing on the sidewalk outside the Gershwin theater. It's probably a good thing Kurt doesn't have magic powers, since the force of his own will isn't enough for him to strangle New Directions' lead soloist from a thousand miles away.
He'll get there. With everything that's been turned upside-down so far since spring, that's really the only thing Kurt hasn't ever doubted. Blaine's coming too, if Tilda will give him the chance.
Which means that Kurt really wants to stay on the good side of the only woman he secretly suspects could go toe to toe with Sue Sylvester and at least tie, but, well. For one thing, she keeps texting Blaine at the end of dates-she says it's easier for him to sneak back into the Dalton dorms when he has a legitimate reason to be out in the first place. For another...well, it's magic. He can't be blamed for actually wanting to see a little of it.
And Blaine wants him here, which is romantic enough in its way to make Kurt's heart flutter a little, so he smiles, and says, “I suppose then we'd better go find her, then, shouldn't we?”
There's not much of a path; they hold hands to keep their balance and trudge around the hill in the moonlight. There's not another car in sight, and Kurt's about to say something to that effect when a glowing white spark lights up thirty feet down the other side of the hill and he remembers: right, magic. It's a little steeper climbing down than up, and they skid on pebbles a few times, nearly tripping, before they come to a grinning stop close enough to see Tilda through the dark.
“And I see you brought the Muggle,” Tilda says dryly by way of greeting.
“Technically Kurt brought me,” Blaine says, and tugs Kurt in close by the hand he still hasn't dropped. “What are we working on tonight?”
“Well, given that you're firing corporeal Patronuses at full-strength again, I think it's time we moved on to more advanced evasive maneuvers,” Tilda says, and Blaine nods seriously.
“All right,” he says. “I can do that.”
“Where should I stand?” asks Kurt. 'Evasive maneuvers' sounds like Blaine's going to be dodging things, and Kurt is not a big fan of running, particularly when he's technically only here as a spectator.
“Anywhere's fine,” Tilda says carelessly.
“Um...are you sure about that?” Tilda hasn't seemed to want him dead for the past couple of months, anyway. She nods.
“He's not going to be evading stuff on the ground anyway,” she says. “So it doesn't really matter.”
“Wait,” says Blaine. “I'm not?”
“You boys are crap at reconnaissance,” she informs them, and bends down to pick up something lying just next to and behind her feet.
At first Kurt thinks it's just a branch, but that doesn't explain the way Blaine's hand tightens painfully around his own. Then he sees the bristles at one end.
“Tilda,” says Blaine. “That's a broom.”
“And I was clearly way off on that reconnaissance thing,” she says. “So mount up. I want to see if your aerial maneuvering's as good as you say it was.”
“Tilda, I...” Blaine seems frozen, staring, so Kurt takes it upon himself to let go of Blaine's hand and give him a little push.
“Go show off,” Kurt says.
It nudges Blaine into taking the broomstick, almost reverently, from Tilda's hands. He holds it out next to himself, letting the tail droop almost down to the ground.
“It's just an old Jetstream 550, but it'll clock a little over a hundred if you handle it right,” she's explaining, but Blaine doesn't really seem to be paying attention to her at all. “Don't get more than a hundred yards up, and don't go crashing it, it's got to go back to its owner in the morning.”
“Up,” says Blaine, and the tail of the broom jerks upright to sit horizontally in his grasp.
He's not moving, though, so Kurt leans forward and kisses him, once, just on the cheek. “Go for it,” he says.
Blaine swings a leg over the broom, bends his knees...
...and Kurt's staggering backwards from a sudden rush of wind from out of nowhere, no Blaine to be seen.
“Is he...” Kurt says, looking around wildly.
“Huh,” says Tilda. Kurt glances over, and tries to follow her line of sight up into the night sky. “Out of practice or not, he's actually still pretty good at that.”
Blaine is a darkened blur streaking across the stars, a slightly different shade of black than the midnight-blue of the sky, moving so fast Kurt's eyes can barely keep up. He races towards the tree line and wheels around just as he gets there, turning fast and sharply enough to make Kurt wince, just thinking about G-forces. Then it's up, up, up, surely higher than Tilda's hundred-yard limit, until Kurt can barely see him at all.
“It doesn't seem like the safest thing he's ever done,” Kurt says.
“The broom's got a little bit of inertial dampening so he doesn't kill himself on the turns, and I've got my wand if he falls,” says Tilda. “Not that he will. He's having way too much fun up there to come down that fast.”
A split second later, Kurt almost corrects her, because the dark speck of Blaine has started getting bigger so quickly he must've fallen off his broom-but no, it's too fast, and the line of descent is angled slightly towards the bottom of the hill, and now he's close enough for Kurt to make out his shape, crouched low over the handle of the broom, streaking down to the ground at just over a hundred miles an hour, and Kurt grabs for Tilda's wrist because he's going to crash, he's going to-
Blaine pulls out of his dive at the last possible moment, rocketing back upwards at speeds Kurt's pretty sure that broom was not made to produce. He pulls to a stop maybe sixty feet up in the air, and then the broom slowly settles back down towards the earth while Kurt's heart slowly settles back down from his throat.
“You're insane,” Kurt says, when Blaine's feet finally touch the ground and he can collect himself enough to speak again.
“Three years off a broomstick, and you go right in for a Wronski Feint,” says Tilda. “I'm with Kurt.”
Blaine is grinning ear to ear, so wide it looks like he might split something. It's annoying, because Kurt really wants to yell at him, but he can't actually object properly to anything that makes Blaine smile like that. “For a real Wronski Feint I would've needed to come at least ten feet farther down. And somebody else would have to be up there chasing me. Do I pass aerial evasion?”
“You haven't actually evaded anything yet,” Tilda points out. “Just wait until I start sending Stunning spells up after you and counting how long it takes for you to fall.”
“Are you kidding?” Kurt asks, and Tilda glances over at him with a shrug.
“I'd catch him,” she says.
“That was amazing,” says Blaine, and he's beaming so hard they probably don't even need Tilda's lit-up wand to see through the darkness, so Kurt can't help but smile back.
“I'm glad you're enjoying yourself,” Kurt says sincerely. That's when Blaine gets the dangerous look in his eye.
“Hey Tilda, how much would this broom carry?” he asks. Kurt isn't sure why, exactly, but Tilda blinks and something in her expression shifts sly, too.
“They usually get pretty sluggish if you try to load them up past 200 pounds, but all you really need is a basic featherweight charm,” she says. “You do remember how to do one of those, right?”
“Um...” says Blaine.
“Never mind, I'll do it,” she says, and then she levels the still-glowing tip of her wand at Kurt. “Otherwise you'll give him the relative weight density of helium and you'll have to go up after him on the broom just so he doesn't float away. Hold still.”
“I'm sorry, what?” Kurt asks flatly. Blaine steps forward, catches Kurt's eye all pleading and earnest.
“Pleeeease?” he says. “It's amazing. You'll love it.”
“You want me to go up there, with you, on that...that thing, while you do loop-de-loops and roller coaster dives and who knows what else?” Kurt asks. Kurt is not afraid of heights. He's also not suicidal. There's a difference.
“I won't let you fall,” Blaine says seriously. “I promise. You can hold onto me as tight as you want.”
Kurt really wants to say 'no'. He really does, because straddling an incredibly painful-looking wood bar while hanging in midair half a football field off the ground sounds about as close to his idea of a good time as clearance day at Target, but, well. He's a sucker. He can't resist his boyfriend's pleading face.
“If you promise to go slow,” Kurt says, raising a warning finger. Blaine just grins.
“Go for it, Tilda,” he says.
A moment later, Kurt finds himself feeling...lighter, by some significant number of pounds. He doesn't think he's at any risk of floating away, but he could definitely get enough air time to manage that standing double 360 layout Coach Sylvester was always trying to get the Cheerios to do. Blaine catches his hand a moment later.
“Come on,” he says. “Here, get on behind me so I can see where we're going and hold on to my waist.” Gingerly, Kurt swings one of his newly-lightened legs over the broom stick, then, even more gingerly, settles down.
It's...surprisingly comfortable, actually. “Cushioning Charm,” Tilda says, and Kurt glances over in surprise. “Standard on all models.”
“I can imagine why,” Kurt says, wrapping his arms carefully around his boyfriend's body. He's just a little bit taller than Blaine, just enough to tuck his chin over Blaine's shoulder and see where they're going. Not that there's much to see, in the dark, but if they're going to crash into something and die Kurt supposes he'd rather see it coming.
“All right, you ready?” Blaine asks, and Kurt tightens his grip.
“Let's go,” he says, and Blaine pushes off the ground.
They don't rocket up into the sky like Blaine had earlier; Blaine's clearly going slow for Kurt's sake. It's nice of him, particularly in light of his daredevil feats earlier, and they start off with what Kurt assumes is supposed to be a leisurely loop of the clearing around the hill. Of course, they're three stories up off the ground, and if they fall there's nothing at the bottom of their landing but a sharp splat, but Blaine is reassuringly solid pressed up all against Kurt's front.
Blaine leans forward, just a little, and Kurt leans with him, and the broom underneath them begins to pick up speed. The wind is whipping at their faces, warm and moist on an Ohio spring night, smelling of green growth and upcoming summer. They zip over the car and bank right, back around towards the hill again, and Kurt is surprised to feel the smile growing on his face.
“You ready for something a little more exciting?” Blaine asks, and Kurt nods.
“Show me,” he says, and Blaine pulls back on the front of the broom and sends them zooming up into the sky.
It's a little like the building thrill of a roller coaster, only instead of clanking metal and screaming children, Kurt has the quiet whipping of the wind and the distant buzz of cicadas, and his boyfriend tight in his arms. It's not as dark as it seems like it should be up here, half a moon and a million stars just enough for Kurt to look to the right and see the side of Blaine's grin when they come to a sudden halt, dozens of yards above the top of the hill.
“All right,” says Blaine. “You want to try a dive?”
“Not like before,” Kurt says warningly, and Blaine nods. Kurt feels it against the side of his head more than sees it, in the dark.
“Not as steep,” he promises. “We'll head down towards that clump of trees there.” Kurt follows the line of Blaine's moonlit finger down towards an irregular, slightly darker splotch on the ground, far enough away for a sane kind of angle of descent.
“All right,” says Kurt, resettling himself on the broom and feeling himself start to match Blaine's grin with his own in anticipation. “Go.”
An instant later, they're dropping, nearly straight down, the broom falling too fast for Kurt's stomach to keep up with it. He swears into the wind, digging his fingers into Blaine's side, while Blaine just laughs, wild and free, and pulls them swooping upwards into a more controlled dive. It's incredible, the feeling of nothing underneath, of no limits, not speed or gravity or anything at all. Blaine is still laughing, and Kurt finds himself whooping along, leaning farther forward, pushing them even faster towards the low dark sprawl of the ground.
“Blaine, pull up!” he says, but they're already evening out, zipping on a level course towards the little copse at least two or three times as fast as their earlier circles of the hillside. The trees are coming up fast, but Blaine banks a hard right. Kurt leans into it with him, the rush of it all making him tingle from head to toe, and all right, he can see why Blaine loves this. He really can.
“Blaine,” he says, raising his voice to be heard over the wind, even though Blaine's ear is only inches from his mouth. “We're defying gravity.”
Blaine laughs, and screw you, Rachel Berry and the Gershwin theater, Kurt has the real thing, right here in Ohio. And nobody is ever going to bring this down.
“I love you,” says Blaine, and Kurt's whole body goes so electric with surprise that for a split second, he's completely sure he's going to lose his grip and fall off the broom.
He clutches at Blaine's stomach, probably harder than he should, and oh shit, what kind of boyfriend answers a declaration of love by grabbing you that hard around the stomach, and Kurt hasn't said anything yet, and now it's going to be awkward because he still hasn't said anything, and they're going to run into that tree-
Blaine swerves around the tree, and somehow, impossibly, Kurt finds his breath again. “I love you, too,” he promises, right into Blaine's ear, and hopes that Blaine doesn't need to be looking him in the eye to know he means it.
“You know,” Blaine says, circling the back side of the tree and pointing them back toward the hill, “it's really been a pretty good year.”
Kurt smiles ruefully in the dark, and can't help but think about just what exactly this past year entailed, for him. Then he presses himself up, warm and solid against his boyfriend's back as they fly on through the night.
“You know,” he says honestly. “It really has.”
*****
Well! It's been quite the ride. Those of you left wondering about loose ends... might find this interesting. *cackle*