All that glitters is not gold,

often have you heard that told”

Mine is all the glittering sea,

waves of gold engulfing me,

in the depths all shadows dark,

they do not offer a warning bark,

Have you ever sung to the ocean?

and walked waters with a board?

For the tide's ears are always open,

as long as it's pits are clawed.



Puck is the first to let out a yelp of enthusiasm and the cheers follow. In the midst of it Blaine nudges into Kurt, pressing their knees together and grinning, imagining how the sparkling waves would look against Kurt's pale skin and aquatic eyes. Hawaii. He thinks. Sun, singing, winning competitions and freckles across his boyfriend's back.

“And the theme,” Mr Shue drum-rolls along the piano to Brad's chagrin, “Is Water!”

“Can we bring back the syncro routine?” Sam asks.

Kurt feels a tightening in his chest at the reminder of the water-flushed Blaine from Mr Shue's proposal, beautiful and blushed in red as he walked across the water.

“We will be performing on land unfortunately,” Mr Shue continues, “But as long as your parents give permission there will be more than enough time for swimming, surfing and sunbathing. We will need some parent volunteers, however.”

“Mine and Finn's would be happy to help I'm sure,” Kurt interrupts, raising his hand. Finn's head falls into his hands but good-naturedly. Despite dismissing the opportunity for both of them to spend some quality un-supervised time with their significant others, it wouldn't be their last Nationals without their parents' cat-calling in the crowd.

“I'm so excited!” Blaine whispers against Kurt's neck, when Mr Shue starts talking set-lists, “I can surf again!”

“You surf?” Kurt asks, surprised.

Blaine had always appeared to be such a focussed type, choreographed, with each step known days before anyone else; not like how Kurt imagined a surfer to be with it's freedom of movement, the terrifying unpredictability of waves. The roaring sand of oceans is something Kurt associates with muddled last holidays and cold, damp hands pressing into his, spewing vomit into sand and buckets.

He does not fear it; but it creeps into him like cold water trickling down his back.

He smiles, for Blaine.

“Coop taught me,” Blaine explains, grinning and gripping Kurt's hand tightly. His enthusiasm is infectious and Kurt can't help joining in with the rousing chorus of ‘Surfin' USA' as his friends spin out across the rooms, miming and dipping, laughing as though the lights above were truly the sun and the floor below were truly the ocean. Blaine tugs him closer by his hips and they wave their arms in the air, bumping elbows and heels against toes.

“It's going to be great really,” Blaine continues, “I can't wait to show you.”

***

“I should have brought my Lola outfit,” Puck remarks as they queue through passport control, “I think they would appreciate it in Hawaii.”

“Maybe if they're wearing sunglasses,” Kurt snaps back, the weight of his bag and the tired ache that comes with the nerves of flying and going someplace new twitches his insides.

The bright lights of the airport have dulled all their senses and the entire group are moody and exhausted, squinting at the queue ahead, the only sound being the muffled chatter, so slow it appears almost as one-liners.

“Maybe they'll appreciate me,” Rachel says, stiffly, still sore from a team-work complaint Mercedes had muttered earlier. Mercedes now rolls her eyes and stuffs a headphone into her ear.

“Everything is going to be great,” Blaine adds, still cheerful, despite the lengthy coach ride to the airport and the lack of food in his body, the sunglasses on his head, tucked, for once, in deep curls make it appear like he is already there, “I've never felt more prepared in my whole life.”

“Does this kid have a negative bone in his body?” Burt says, gruffly, as they shuffles closer to the desk, Carole elbows him but Kurt grins, slipping his hand into Blaine's, invisible in the crush of the crowd.

“We're going to Nationals,” Blaine adds, “and the beach, who would be unhappy with that all ahead?”

“Blaine right,” Tina adds, as they finally move through passport control and security eyes them with a bored expression, “this is it, we made it, we've just got to sing our way to the top.”

***

And like fireworks, gunning across the stage, whizzing around each other and spinning faster and faster in bright circles; they make it all the way to the top. Hearts thumping through the very floor and surrounding the whole group of them in a wave of thunderous realisation that they are here, they've done it and the cheers in the crowd held no sarcasm.

They press together, fingers tugging into knots between them, trying to grip everyone all at once. Mercedes hands are around his waist, Rachel's gripped to his elbow, Finn ruffles a hand through his hand and Blaine holds both of his hands in his.

“And the National Champions are,” the Judge yells out, as a frantic hula-hoopa wiggles across the stage, “the New Directions!”

The rush as the jump together, miss a heartbeat and crash likes waves on beaches, Rachel starts sobbing and Blaine can feel it too in the back of his throat, against the tightness of a wide smile.

They push Finn across the stage to get the trophy when it becomes apparent that Rachel can't move for shock, he plunges it into the air, like the final rocket of the show and they feel like they are burning with it.

***

The sunlight on Kurt's skin is more than Blaine could imagine, and the falling light of the evening, brightened by a thousand coloured lights they braided across the front of the marquee, make him glow like a mermaid. They are all glowing and when Blaine suggests that they go for a midnight surf, Sam runs to tackle him and punches a “hell yes!” into his shoulder.

The boys run at the stack of foam boards, dusted with sand from the past day and lash straps around ankles. Sam, Puck, Mike and Finn run at the ocean, sprinting towards the golden flat water, and floating out like lilies on a pond. Blaine waits a moment, turning back to Kurt who digs himself a seat in the sand and pulls his knees to his chest, waving him off.

“Go,” he tells him gently, and Blaine does, sliding his shirt off and pressing a gentle salty kiss against Kurt's forehead.

The water laps slowly at his feet as he enters, and the weight of the board under his arm makes him grin. It reminds him of summers when Cooper would come home and they would race and flash through the water like dolphins. The lull of the waves at night-time freshens his mind and he slips out a little further than the others, using strong tugs of his arms to sweep him out. Then he turns over onto his back and looks up at the sky, littered with stars.

From here, the water looks black beneath him, a shadowy pit of unknown, the wind rushes salt onto his skin and the scratch of sand against his back and legs itches. He thinks of Kurt and the ebullient that had rushed his features on their triumph, how he wants that together, always, in New York were they'll spin and dance together, where they'll sneak into music shops and play piano until his fingers ache and Kurt's voice is raw with it and then they'll grip each other through the night faces pressed against necks and chests and everything will be perfect.

“Hey Blaine,” Sam calls, lazily kicking towards him as he straddles the board, “Want some company?”

“Mmm,” Blaine responds, sitting up slowly, feeling the tug of stomach muscles shifting him forward. He presses his hands into the rough material of the board, it is perfectly balanced, “We should go surfing properly tomorrow.”

“Yeah that would be cool,” Sam responds, “You any good?”

“It's been a while,” Blaine admits, tilting his head back into the wind as it rushes at his skin, “But yeah, I'm pretty good.”

“Can you imagine singing out here?” he asks, after a pause.

They both start humming together, and then the song builds at Blaine starts first. Their voices drift endlessly across the water, echoing deep caverns of music into the slight dips into the water. From across the bay they can hear the others join in, softly at first and then stronger, until the dips and sways they create in the imperfect harmonies, scatter around them light the wind and light.

Across the water, Kurt hums along with them, sifting sand between his fingers and trying not to look to far, to see how there is no end to it, how the horizon drops against the water and how Blaine is just a buoy bobbing on it, bright in the darkness, his tan skin shining with salt water, and his voice bridging across the infinite space.

But he smiles when the girls flump beside him, dumping their shoes and drinks and running at the water, squealing as they dip their toes and ripple the delicate lacy edge of the sand.

“Not a big fan of the water either?” Artie asks as he rolls up to Kurt, his wheels sinking into the sand.

“I guess not,” Kurt responds, “Do want me to help you out, so you can sit here with me?”

Artie shrugs helplessly, but smiles gratefully, holding out his arms so Kurt can grip around his waist. He's never really thought about how fragile Artie is, how, now that he's sat on the ground, he cannot move. How his legs only dangle like puppet strings. He wonders what it would be like to have so little to choose from. Would he feel truly human, or half-robot with wheels for legs. Artie is, despite this, the strength of their group the cogs behind it turning and pulling them forwards. Raising a fist and pulling them back down to earth.

“We won,” Kurt says, finally, “I mean we really did it.”

“We should have done ‘Sit down your rocking the boat',” Artie responds, his gloves hands gripping the sand tightly, like he might tip off the earth were he to let go.

“We didn't just rock it, Artie,” Kurt replies, leaning back so their shoulders are touching and they can listening to the voices dancing across the water, “We tipped the whole thing over.”

“Yeah,” Artie says, quietly, “Not on my damn watch, you're not catching me going in there any time soon.”

“It's sort of terrifying isn't it?” Kurt murmurs back, “I mean anything could be out there, under all that, I mean, you couldn't breathe could you? And you can't control it.”

“It's coming closer,” Artie adds, pointing out the rush of the tide and the rock that the girls were stood against, now engulfed in water. The moon is creeping on them, shuffling it's shadow closer and closer and whittling away at the sand deep below the others feet, entangling them in the in-between.