Packing was much easier with Apol—Blaine's help.  He had a much better idea of what to pack, for one thing. While Kurt was satisfied with some clothes, food, and money, Blaine was not.

He insisted on Kurt bringing different clothing (“Everything you packed is too nice, you'll be upset when it inevitably gets ruined. Pack a few nicer things just in case, but mostly you'll want clothes you can get filthy or ripped up without being upset.”), almost every medical supply they had in the house, and more food. And strange food. Such as things Kurt knew would spoil and quickly.

“I can hunt while we're traveling, so we'll get some fresher meats, but we need things to cook them with,” he'd explained. “Stews are best, so grab things for that, plus any cookware you want. Trust me, the more variety in what you're eating, the happier you'll be.”

Packing was also much easier when anything Kurt needed fit into the quiver Blaine was carrying. He was a little wary of putting so much into it at first, after all, how would he ever get it back out? Blaine assured him all he had to do was think about the object he wanted and reach in to find it again, and then offered to let Kurt try just to make sure.

Blaine explained that as long as the object was placed in the quiver at one point (and could fit through the opening), it could pull whatever they wanted out without damaging it (“yes, Kurt, that includes the food.”). That was nice, because otherwise Kurt was sure that the arrows that were already in there would've been smashed to pieces and probably cut up any clothing he packed.

It took a little under an hour for everything Blaine deemed vitally important to be packed up.

It took that same amount of time for Kurt to realize the flaw in his plan.

Who was going to take care of his dad while he was away? There wasn't exactly a line of people waiting to do him a favor, even if it was for his father. He voiced his concerns to Blaine, afraid that this plan really was pointless. What good would it do to get to the Underworld if Burt didn't last that long anyway?

Blaine, in turn, muttered several curses that made Kurt blush, before sighing deeply.

“You're going to have to go ahead of me. Head south, towards the ocean. And quickly.”

“No.” Kurt refused flatly.

This lead to more cursing on Blaine's part, as well as a demand for an explanation.  

“How do I know that it's not a trick? That you won't just leave me stranded out there somewhere while you disappear back to… wherever it was that you came from.”

Blaine's eyes softened at that, and he stepped forward raising his arms like he was going to grab Kurt's face again, but stopped when Kurt took a step back and then glared.  

“I know you don't trust me yet,” he said gently, dropping his arms to his sides. “And I know you don't want to believe that I'm trying to help you. But you're going to have to give me a chance here. I can't do anything to help if you won't let me, and I really do want to help you.”

Kurt stared at him for a few minutes, searching his face for any sign of deception.  “Why do we need to split up?”

Blaine's posture relaxed, apparently relieved that Kurt was willing to hear him out at the very least. He explained (quickly, they really needed to be away from this town) that if he turned his powers back on, he would be able to send a vision to someone in the town, telling them to take care of Burt while they were trying to get to Hades.

“And you can't do that if you're near me,” Kurt finished for him. He thought for a moment, unsure of how much he really trusted his plan before sighing deeply. “There's a woman in town… her name's Carole. She'll… if you tell her to do it, she will. And she'll take good care of him.” He paused and then frowned. “They're friends, I think.”

Blaine accepted this and handed Kurt his quiver. “Take this and head south. There's another town close by, and if you hurry, you should make it there before nightfall. Find somewhere to spend the night and I'll meet you there, okay?”

Kurt had gone back to his father to say another goodbye before following Blaine out of the house and, oddly, into the forest. As they walked, Blaine explained that it was best if they leave the town out of sight, avoiding becoming a topic of discussion. Kurt noted that his companion sounded almost afraid at the thought of someone knowing they'd left town together. He knew that their… quest? needed to be kept secret, but he highly doubted that anyone from his hometown cared if he left or who went with him.

The thought process kept him distracted enough that he didn't notice Blaine had led him to his clearing until they were standing in it.

At once he was hit with the overwhelming wrongness of having someone else in his place. This was where he went to get away from everyone, and now there was a stranger not only standing in it, but going straight to it. He was prepared to demand an explanation as to how Blaine even knew of the place, but was interrupted before he could even speak.

Blaine turned to him and pointed out a path, seemingly at random and gave detailed directions. He assured Kurt that following that path would get him out of town without being seen, and would meet up with a bigger road. As long as he followed that he should end up in the next town without any problems as long as he hurried, because the road wasn't exactly safe when it was dark.

 “There's only one inn, get a room there and I'll find you, I promise.”

Kurt had had his doubts, but didn't get a chance to voice them as Blaine had started to run down a path heading the opposite direction.

Grumbling quietly to himself, he'd been left with no choice but to do what Blaine had told him to do. The forest was a comfort to him now that he was alone in it, so he walked at a steady pace and let his thoughts wander without paying much attention to where he was going.

This entire plan was completely insane, he realized.

He was leaving his sick father alone while he tried to find the Underworld with no proof that he'd be okay except for the promise of a god who had let his mother die.

Kurt almost turned around.

 Instead he forcibly reminded himself that even if Apollo was lying about why he'd left Kurt behind, it still didn't change the fact that he needed to find Hades. He didn't necessarily need help with that. It shouldn't be too hard to find the Underworld. There had to be someone who knew how to get in, even if there wasn't a way out.

In the end, Kurt decided that he was willing to do this before Blaine offered to help, so if he didn't show up, it didn't change anything. He forced himself to stop thinking about it and instead focused on where he was going. While he knew the forest itself fairly well, he'd never been this direction and the path was rarely used and overgrown. He only had to trip once before he made more of an effort to look where he was walking.

It was well past midday when Kurt finally made it out of the forest, and another half hour before he found the road that Blaine had told him about. Knowing that he didn't have much time to get to the meeting point, he pulled a pomegranate out of the quiver and snacked on that as he walked, rather than stopping for an actual meal.

The day was hot, but cooling. Kurt was thankful that he'd spent the majority of the trip walking in the shade, because while the setting sun was worrisome, it was still far too warm. He began feel the effects of the long walk fairly soon. He was great at sprinting, and his arms were fairly strong from helping his father at the forge, but didn't have much practice walking long distances.

The walk itself was uneventful. The road was populated enough that Kurt was rarely alone on it, and he kept a tight grip on the strap to the quiver hanging over his shoulder.  It would be his luck that someone would manage to take it from him and he'd be left alone without any possessions to his name.

By the time he finally made it to the town Blaine had promised was there, the sun had set quite some time ago and Kurt was fairly sure he was late. Finding the inn wasn't too hard, as quite a few of the people around him were going in the same direction. He hoped idly that there was still room by the time he finally managed to push his way towards it, and then wondered why a town that obviously had so many travelers passing through didn't have more accommodations.

Upon entering the building, Kurt realized that he was very late. Blaine was arguing heatedly with a man Kurt assumed was the owner of the building, and gesturing wildly every few seconds. When he noticed a flicker around Blaine's body, Kurt quickly made his way over. Splitting up would prove useless if Apollo got upset enough to reveal himself to everyone.

Blaine seemed to notice Kurt's approach because he stopped his argument midsentence (causing the man he was disagreeing with to blink rapidly a few times, before shaking his head and going back to his business) before he rushed over to Kurt. Even though he half expected it, Kurt still stiffened when he was hugged. Luckily for him, Blaine released him fairly quickly, before pushing him back a pace and scanning his body, hopefully checking for injuries and not just staring at him.

“I was so worried,” Blaine babbled, still not letting go. “You weren't here, and I was sure something happened to you. It didn't, right? You're fine? Nothing—”

“Breathe,” Kurt interrupted, before he stepped out of Blaine's grasp. “It was a longer walk than you made it out to be, I'm fine.”

 Blaine looked ready to start another round of interrogation, but instead glanced around and seemed to notice that they were attracting too much attention and instead grabbed Kurt's hand and dragged him towards the rooms. “The innkeeper said that you weren't here yet, and I thought he was lying to me,” he explained before stopping in front of a door and pushing it open. “He made me rent a room if I was going to cause a scene, but I was half convinced he just didn't want to help me.”

Kurt shut the door behind him, and turned to look at the room. And promptly froze. Not seeming to notice, Blaine continued his story. “I waited awhile to see if you'd come out of one of these rooms, but you didn't so I started to panic. I was going to—are you alright?”

 “Why is there only one bed?” Kurt managed to ask, though he wasn't sure how he managed to speak with his throat so dry.

Blaine turned to look at it as if it had just grown up out of the floor. “I didn't check when I came up here, I… I told him you were my boyfriend, so I guess he just assumed I'd only need one. I can go try and get a different room,” he offered quickly at the look of horror on Kurt's face. 

“Why would you tell him that?” Kurt demanded through clenched teeth.

Blaine at least had the good sense to look guilty. “He wouldn't tell me if you were here if I was just some random stranger, I had to—”

“You could have told him we were friends! Or relatives! Anything but that.”

“We look nothing alike,” Blaine said flatly. “And I didn't realize the idea was so offensive to you. I can go and get a different room; it won't be a big deal.”

Blaine left the room quickly, but Kurt refused to stop fuming. He quickly set the quiver down (the fear that he might damage its contents stronger than the desire to throw it across the room) and began to pace. He knew he was overreacting to what had happened, it's just that all he can imagine is being shoved up against a wall with David leaning over him, whispering horrible things into his ear before forcing his first kiss.

He manages to make it to a bathroom before he throws up.

Thankfully there wasn't much to puke up. The meager breakfast he had hours ago with his father seemed like a different lifetime ago, and the pomegranate he ate on the road hardly filling, but the gagging won't stop now that it's started.

It's how Blaine finds him.

The conversation that followed was awkward, to say the least. Blaine, equal parts horrified and worried, asked a dozen questions about his wellbeing before accepting Kurt's (rather obvious, if he's being honest) lie about a weak stomach and too much stress. He then apologizes profusely as he explains that there isn't another room available (or there is, and the man he spent the better half of an hour harassing is feeling vindictive, it's hard to say), and it's either sleep outside or stay where they are.

By that point, Kurt was too tired to argue about it.

Blaine had fussed over him while Kurt managed to drag himself into the bed and then repeatedly refused to eat dinner. There was no guarantee that it would stay down, and he was not going to have a repeat performance of his little puke fest.

His last thought before drifting off to sleep was that he was going to hate himself for sleeping in his clothes in the morning.

XxX

Kurt woke up to a warm weight crushing him, and an intense stomach ache trying to consume him.

The pain in his stomach, his sleep fogged mind informed him, was because it was empty and not pleased about it. The crushing weight would need to be further investigated. He forced his unwilling eyes open, and looked down at his chest to find… an arm. In the sudden rush of panic that forced itself into his still half asleep brain, he forgot the events of the day before.

Someone was holding him down. They weren't going to let him go and he wasn't going to escape and this is how he was going to die, with the weight of the arm slowly pressing down on him until he couldn't breathe and it was already happening why couldn't he get enough air, what was going on?

In his desperation to get away from his perceived captor, he threw himself off the bed and landed with a loud thump on the floor, then gasped for air that refused to do any good.

“Kurt,” someone was saying from in front of him. He refused to open his eyes, convinced that if he couldn't see what was happening, then it couldn't do anything to him. “Kurt, I need you to take a deep breath, okay.” Something was grabbing at his hand, but he couldn't get enough air to scream like he so desperately wanted to.

Rather than the pain he fully expected to feel, his hand was placed on someone's chest. “Feel me breathing, Kurt? I need you to try and take breaths with me. Can you do that?”

He shook his head furiously, but against his will felt himself complying. The more he woke up, the more he realized that he probably wasn't in any danger.

“Do you remember yesterday? Your dad got sick, so you asked for my help. We're trying to get to the Underworld to ask for help, remember? My name's… well. You're calling me Blaine. Is this sounding familiar to you?”

Kurt finally managed to open his eyes and was met with Blaine's concerned gaze. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I don't know what happened.”

“You looked so terrified,” Blaine said in the same soothing voice he'd been using while trying to calm Kurt down. “Do you know what caused it?”

Kurt looked away. “I couldn't move. I woke up and… your—your arm. It was on me. And I… panicked. I'm sorry.”

When he was met with only silence, Kurt looked up to see Blaine looking stricken. “I… I'm not used to sleeping. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. It's… I'm so sorry.”

A loud growling from his stomach saved Kurt from having to answer. Blaine stood up, running a hand through his hair before helping Kurt to his feet. “Come on, we'll get some breakfast and then start towards the ocean.”

Agreeing to the plan, Kurt quickly changed his clothes before following his companion out of the room, ready to devour whatever food was put in front of him. He managed to eat his tagenites so quickly he wasn't sure if there was a taste.

For whatever reason (the glaring owner, the attention he'd attracted, the desire to leave all unpleasant memories of this place behind… there were actually quite a few reasons), Blaine was eager to leave quickly and ate almost as fast as Kurt did.

He'd refused to have any kind of conversation while they were still in the building, seemingly paranoid about anyone knowing any part of their plan. As a result, it wasn't until they were leaving the town itself before he answered any of Kurt's questions. Namely, why they were headed towards the ocean.

“Funny story actually… I broke into the Underworld once.” Kurt had stared at him, completely dumbfounded. “I know, dangerous hobby. And I didn't do it alone. A friend of mine, who we're going to see, actually, managed to get in there through the water ways. It was… an odd experience. We were planning on pulling a prank on his Deadness, but we were caught before it worked out that way.”

Blaine stared into space, apparently reliving the memory.

“You and Poseidon broke into the Underworld… for fun?”

“No names,” he hissed back, glancing at the sky as if he thought the water god was going to appear there.

Kurt rolled his eyes. “Then what am I supposed to call him? And… your other Uncle too, for that matter.”

“They are never going to forgive me for this,” Blaine muttered to himself. “Sam. The one who helped me break in. Call him Sam. And… Sebastian. For the King of the Underworld.”

“Those are weird names,” Kurt pointed out.

“Because Kurt is so average,” Blaine shot back.

“It's a nickname,” Kurt said defensively. “It's short for—”

“Don't say it! What part of names have power do you not understand?”

There was a long silence between them, before Kurt finally asked, “Why would my name have power?”

Blaine muttered a few more choice curses before he finally took a deep breath and explained. “When your family was declared off limits… we were all told your names so we knew to avoid you. As a result, my father put a… a track on your names. He can hear people talking about you.”

The blood rapidly drained from Kurt's face, leaving him even paler than usual. “So he already knows what we're doing? What's the point of calling you Blaine if he can hear you talk about me?”

Blaine shook his head so violently his curls slapped him in the face. “He can't hear nicknames. I don't think he even knows you don't go by your real name.”

Kurt sighed in relief before he frowned, “If he told everyone my real name, how did you know I went by Kurt?”

He was met with another round of muttered cursing.

“This is embarrassing, you have to understand,” Blaine said, avoiding eye contact. “You attacked my temple, once.”

“It was more than once,” Kurt responded dryly.

 “Really? Not important. The first time you did it… I felt it. So I showed up to investigate and saw that it was you. The priests who were chasing you away said your name.”

Kurt nodded slowly, “How is that embarrassing?”

“It got me kicked out of the town. I wasn't supposed to be anywhere near you, but Ze—my father was willing to let it go because I didn't know it was you. But then, well… I didn't punish you. They all were waiting for me to do so. It's a pretty big insult.”

“So… why didn't you do anything to me?”

“You were a child,” Blaine said, passionately. “And you had just lost your mother. I know you thought I was a monster, but I couldn't very well prove you right by punishing you for being a heart broken kid!”

He sighed heavily, “The others thought I was weird, but… well they usually think that anyway. So I was issued a warning, and the subject was dropped. But then I showed up in town again a year later to help someone else, and… you were there. I didn't know you'd be there, of course. But it's hard to prove that. So I was banned from the town itself.”

They walked in silence for a few hours while Kurt let the information sink in. He supposed he probably was too hard on Apollo for all those years, if what he was saying now was true. The townspeople were right after all, he should have been punished or killed for everything he did, but was spared because… because Apollo didn't blame him?

The road they were on now was far less populated than the one Kurt had traveled on the day before. There were fields on either side of them, growing what looked like barley to Kurt's untrained eye. He vaguely wondered how Blaine seemed to know these roads so well, if he knew exactly which paths to take to get them to the ocean.

It wasn't until they stopped for lunch that he realized how strange that was.

“You knew where my clearing was,” Kurt said suddenly. Blaine gave him a blank look, so he continued his train of thought. “You just said you were banned from the town after you refused to punish me or whatever. But you knew your way around that forest really well. And you went right for the place I spend most of my time. How could you have known that?”

Blaine turned away, suddenly very interested in repacking the quiver. “I used to check on you,” he said finally, though he still refused to look at Kurt. “My darling twin was ready to kill me for it because she said it was much cleaner than what our dear father would do to me if he found out, but there you go. I was worried about you.”

Kurt wondered if any part of this situation would ever make sense. “I don't understand why you would do that.”

“No. you wouldn't. But it doesn't matter.”

Blaine refused to say anything else on the subject, so Kurt was forced to let it drop. They cleaned up the last of their mess before moving on again. Blaine informed him that at the rate they were going, they should make it to the ocean in a day or two at the most. Afterwards they lapsed into a strained silence.

Kurt eventually couldn't stand it anymore, and finally asked a question he was sure would be ignored. “If we get caught…”' he started awkward, not quite sure how to word what he wanted to say. “You said earlier that your twin was going to give you a clean death. You could get in a lot of trouble for this.” Blaine nodded absently so Kurt was pretty sure he was at least listening. “Why bother then? If you could get into so much trouble that your own twin thought that killing you was nicer, then why are you doing this?”

“Schue, the name we use for father dearest,” he added at Kurt's confused look. “He's… he can't kill me. We can be killed, I think. The Titans were just as immortal as we are, but they're gone now. So rather than killing us, we comes up with creative little punishments. A, ah, wine taster friend of mine… he got in trouble once for, well for sleeping with a nymph that was declared off limits. Schue found out. So he put this god on… probation. Couldn't drink any wine for a certain amount of time. He was not fun to be around.”

“That doesn't sound too bad,” Kurt ventured weakly.

“For you or me? No. It wouldn't be. But for him? That's… that's where he gets his powers. Not being able to drink it? If he wasn't already so good at controlling madness, it would've made him insane.”

Kurt thought for a moment, “So you'd be… kept away from sunlight?”

Blaine let out a hollow laugh. “Probably not. Schue needs me for that, it'd be something else. And since I'm breaking more rules than D was, it'll probably be harsher. I actually don't know why he'd do. I'm sure he'd think of something, though. Since he is both the god of justice and an ass, I'm sure he spends down time thinking things like that up.”

“That really doesn't explain why you're helping me,” Kurt pointed out quietly.

“You don't like me,” Blaine said, voice flat. “I'm not saying that isn't a justified reaction, it's just a fact. You hate me. You panic whenever I touch you. You're half convinced that I'm going to abandon you once I get you far away enough from your home to ever find your way back.”

Kurt nodded his agreement, though in light of what Blaine was risking, he felt almost guilty for it. Blaine continued his speech, “You're aware that even if I don't screw you over somehow, you could still fail and end up being a permanent resident of the Underworld. And you're doing all of this anyway.”

“I can't just let my dad die, he's all I have,” Kurt insisted.

“And some things are scarier than dying,” Blaine said, finishing his thought. “I know you don't get it, and you probably won't, but… I can just… I know that you're so incredibly important. And I don't know how or why because the future refuses to be easy to read, but… I know that you matter so much, so keeping you safe? It's worth it.”

“But… I haven't done anything. How can I be important if I've spent most of my life hiding from people who hated me because I hated you?”

“Yet,” Blaine said simply. “You haven't done anything yet. But you will. And prophecies are kind of my thing, so take my word for it. As far as I'm concerned, you're the most important person in the universe.”