The next day of travel was uneventful. Blaine was sulking, Kurt was ignoring his sulking, Blaine, as a result, sulked harder.

By lunch he seemed to have gotten over whatever it was that he was sulking about, though he refused to talk about it, or about his visit with Poseidon, or… much of anything.

It was odd.

“Are you angry with me?” Kurt finally asked as they stopped for lunch. Going against tradition, Blaine had not only had Kurt cook, but also serve the meal. Considering who they were, it made sense, but during all of their time together, Blaine had always insisted in doing things… backwards. The sudden change was jarring.

“Why would I be mad?”

“I don't know why, I just feel like you are.” Blaine didn't answer, and now he wouldn't even make eye contact. Kurt groaned. “Is this because Sam couldn't help? I know you were planning on this trip being much shorter and… and easier, but I can't really help that. And I'm sorry you're stuck out in the middle of nowhere with me rather than going off and… doing whatever it is that you normally do.”

Blaine was looking at him blankly now, which was disturbing but at least he had his attention. “I'd understand if you didn't want to help me anymore, but you could tell me that instead of pretending like I don't exist.”

There was an awkward silence that followed and Kurt braced himself for the abandonment that he was sure would follow. He was used to doing things by himself. He could do it again. Sure it would be much easier to get to the Underworld with Blaine's help, and a lot more likely that Sebastian would help him if he wasn't alone, but that wasn't Blaine's problem. It was his.

He'd just… miss him. It had been so long since he'd had a friend. And Blaine was actually really good at it, even with Kurt's… issues with him. Though he actually thought they were past that. They were getting along pretty well, weren't they? Blaine even offered to teach him archery! And implied that he wanted to visit Kurt even after they had rescued his dad! That… that was what friends do, isn't it?

“I'm not going to leave you alone in the middle of nowhere with no way get to get back home,” Blaine finally said. His voice had lost the cheer it typically had and Kurt felt his heart drop. Blaine really didn't want to help anymore.

“I'm sure I could figure it out,” he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. “You're not obligated to help me. You can go if you want. I'll be fine.” To his complete horror he felt his eyes sting and he blinked quickly to stop any tears from forming. Too much smoke from the fire.

Blaine set his food down and stood up; Kurt, despite his best efforts, felt the tears start to form. He hoped that he'd be able to stop from crying until after Blaine had left. The embarrassment would be unbearable otherwise.

To his complete surprise, rather than walking away from the campsite, Blaine simply dropped down onto the ground right next to Kurt. Seeming to notice the look on his face, Blaine then put his arm around Kurt's shoulders in an attempt at a hug.

“You don't have to stay here just because you feel sorry for me. I really can handle this.”

“I have absolutely no doubt that you could do anything if you really wanted it, Kurt. But I'm still staying. You'll have to work much harder to say goodbye to me.”

“I don't want to say goodbye to you,” Kurt admitted miserably. He dropped his head onto Blaine's shoulder, “I know you have literally no competition for the role, but you're still kind of my best friend.”

“Even though you never want to see me again after we save your dad?”

“I do believe your exact words for what Schue would do to you were “horrific and creative torture”, so no.”

Blaine dropped a kiss on top of Kurt's head which made him tense, but he resisted the instinct to pull away. “I still think it'd be worth it. And we've managed to get this far without getting caught! I don't see how it'd be that hard to drop in and visit you sometimes.”

“You said that Quinn was going to shoot you just for checking on me. Kind of implies that she knew where you were spending your time.”

“She wouldn't tell anyone.”

“Are you sure?”

“… It'd still be worth it. I do rather like spending time with you.”

“I think you're just bored in all the downtime from immortality and like feeling like you're getting away with something.”

Kurt felt rather than saw Blaine nod, before he hummed thoughtfully. “I think you might have a point. Thrill of danger, noble deeds, and a very pretty young boy. This has all the makings of a truly epic song. Or a play, if that's what you're into.”

After a snort of laughter and gentle smack to Blaine's arm, Kurt hauled himself up to his feet and put out their cooking fire. Following his lead once again, Blaine picked up their supplies from where they'd been scattered about and returned them to his quiver. When everything was done, they continued on their walk.

The directions that Sam had given them were… lacking, to say the least. He implied that Blaine should know where they were going, so Kurt was left with no choice but to trust that Blaine did know. He seemed to. They walked a brisk pace away from the coastland and farther into forest once again, fast enough that they could get where they were going in decent time, but measured enough that Kurt wasn't left exhausted at the end of each day. He assumed that it was godly powers that gave Blaine his seemingly infinite energy.

It seemed, the longer they walked, that Blaine was now determined to make up for this silence earlier in the day. He talked endlessly.  Stories about his childhood, archery competitions with his sister, giving some clearly deaf mortal a pair of donkey ears when they mistakenly claimed that his music was inferior to anyone's, and a few stories about that “misunderstanding” that started that “fight” the gods were in.

Kurt tried pointing out that the Trojan War hardly sounded like a “minor fight”, but Blaine just changed the subject. Sadly, the subject was changed to Kurt's life, which was discouraging. At four days old, Blaine had killed a dragon. Kurt spent most of his life hiding in trees. And… well. Hating Apollo.

Instead he told stories of Tina. Or attempted to, at least. Sadly there weren't many stories to tell, and especially not very many that would hold a god's attention for very long. For all of the time the two spent together, they very rarely did anything other than talk, which was wonderful at the time but wasn't terribly interesting to other people, and even though she was gone, Kurt couldn't bring himself to tell anyone else her secrets.

Stories of his childhood were a touchy subject anyway. Blaine still looked horribly guilty whenever Kurt mentioned his mom, and it was hard talking about her anyway. Stories about his dad left Kurt feeling increasingly stressed over the outcome of their mission.

To make up upsetting Kurt, or maybe just to change the subject, Blaine told Kurt stories of plays he'd seen long before Kurt was born. Kurt listened with rapt attention, hardly even noticing where they were going as he hung on every word Blaine said. Blaine didn't seem to mind, though he did insist on wrapping his arm around Kurt's waist as they walked, “so that you don't trip!”, or so he claimed. Kurt was too focused on the story to actually care.

 When night began to fall and Blaine had run out of stories, the agreed to stop to make camp. Dinner could not have been more different than lunch, and certainly more than breakfast. Blaine went back to his usual habit of cooking and serving the meal which was a relief to Kurt, though still so strange. And rather than sitting on the opposite side of the fire, as far away from Kurt as he could manage, Blaine sat right next to him, grinning as he began to eat.

He wasn't sure if it counted as a fight, and it certainly didn't count as the first one they had, but it still made Kurt weirdly happy that they had somehow managed to work through it. Even if he wasn't sure what started it, and was reluctant to bring the subject up again.

 Blaine, it seemed, knew what he was thinking anyway. “I didn't want Sam to kiss you. So I was pouting. I do apologize for that.”

“Why would it matter anyway?”

Avoided eye contact was not great, but at least Blaine was still speaking. “Several reasons. Though I am surprised you were okay with it, considering what happened with Dav—” he cut himself off abruptly, eyes widening.

“How did you know about David?” Kurt whispered. His voice wasn't working properly and for the life of him he couldn't manage to speak any louder. The memory of what had happened still terrified him. “I never told you. I never told anyone.”

“I told you that I used to check on you,” Blaine replied weakly. “Sorry?”

Kurt shook his head rapidly, hoping that the action would clear away the memory. Or maybe the conversation. It did neither. “It wasn't… it wasn't the same. Sam just… all he really did was breathe into my mouth. It didn't even feel like a kiss. It was just… weird. And with… it wasn't the same as the… the other time.”

Blaine nodded before apologizing for bringing it up in the first place. Kurt shrugged his response and they went back to their meal in relative quiet, before it got to be too much and Blaine began talking about nothing in particular.

~

Kurt woke up the next morning to a very persistent bird that was not going to let its song be ignored. The sun was barely starting to rise, casting everything in an almost pink shadow, but the bird was determined to welcome it regardless.  Kurt sat up, stretched, winced at the stiffness in his back, cursed having to sleep on the ground, yawned, then stood up and walked closer to where the little bird was continuing its song.

It wasn't an overly pretty bird, tiny and black as it was, but it had a very nice voice that would be downright beautiful if it wasn't the reason Kurt was up. Still, he was the one trespassing on the bird's home, he really couldn't blame it. Instead he whistled as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake Blaine, and was delighted when the bird responded.  He whistled again, going through basic scales and the bird sang back once again causing Kurt to laugh.

“I am the god of sunrise and even I think it is way too early for you to be awake,” grumbled a voice from behind Kurt. He turned to smile sheepishly at Blaine, who was burying his head further into his pile of blankets in response.

“I didn't mean to wake you up, but the bird was being cute. I couldn't help myself.”

“I have no idea what the word “Disney” means but it is floating through my head right now.”

“Does that happen to you often?” Kurt asked with a laugh.

“You have no idea.” Muffled as his voice was, it still sounded oddly dark. “I also don't know what medium drips or nonfat mochas are, but I'm still thinking about them. I also think you should be charmed by that knowledge, but again. No idea why.”

Kurt walked over and gently removed the blanket covering Blaine's head before quickly replacing it. “You're glowing.”

“Thank you?”

“No. Literally. You've got your… your godly aura thing on.”

“Styx! Sorry. I guess I am tired.”  Blaine's head immerged from his nest and he smiled sheepishly. “How do I look now?”

On a good day, Blaine's curly hair was messy. Now it was flat on one side from sleeping on it, and sticking up in a few different directions on the other. His eyes, bright as they were, had a few new bags under them from lack of sleep. His nose was red from the early morning chill, and his face was still slightly flushed from embarrassment at having let his powers slip. All of this combined made Kurt realize for the first time since they'd met that Blaine was actually… sort of beautiful.

He stopped that line of thinking abruptly. “You look mortal.”

Blaine let out a groan. “That's horrible.”

“I think I'm offended.”

“You don't care what I think and you know that you're completely gorgeous, so I really don't believe you.”  

Kurt's face turned bright red and he quickly turned back to the bird he was singing with so that Blaine couldn't see it. He whistled for the bird again, louder this time since there was no one to wake up, and waited for it to finish his song.

When he was sure his face was back to a normal color (and the bird had flown off, so he was out of reasons to be looking in that direction anyway), he turned to face Blaine and was caught off guard for two reasons.

One, there was really no reason at all for Blaine to be staring at him like that. There just wasn't. The expression brought back hazy memories of how his father used to look at his mother. He was refusing to think about it.

Two, there was a tall blonde woman standing next to their campsite who was most definitely not there a few minutes ago. Her face was completely beautiful though Kurt had a hard time saying how as there didn't seem to be any steady features. Her looks seemed to be changing but with no visible change occurring, like it was all in his head. Her hair fell around her shoulders, though he couldn't say in what style. He blinked several times trying to focus on her, but it wasn't working. The only way he could really describe her was… glowing.

Oh. She was glowing pink. This would not end well.

“Oh wow, Apollo, he's going to be stunning.”

All the color instantly drained from Blaine's face. “Brittany… please tell me you're not standing behind me.”

“Am I Brittany?” she asked and then… solidified. She shrunk until she was average height, her face stopped moving, her hair was suddenly in a high ponytail that curled at the ends, and the pink aura disappeared. “There, that's better. But why I can't I be Aphrodite?”

Kurt thought he was going to be sick. “How did you find us? We're supposed to be in hiding.”

Brittany looked confused, “But… you invoked me. Oh! Blaine is he your—”

Whatever she was going to say was cut off as Blaine abruptly jumped to his feet and covered the goddess's mouth with a hand before whispering furiously into her ear. “How did you know it was me?” he finally asked, loud enough for Kurt to hear.

“It was… sunrise. We can always sense you then. But… but this place felt stronger. And then… and then I was invoked, so I thought I'd try looking here. And I was right! I found you!”

“You were looking for him?” Kurt asked, his voice sounding panicked to his own ears. “Who else is looking then? We can't get caught.”

“It's fine, Kurt. No one else will find us, I promise.”

 “How can you promise that? You said no one could find us in the first place! And now people are looking for you!”

“It's just Brittany!” Blaine tried to reassure him, walking over and rubbing at Kurt's arms in an attempt to calm him down. It wasn't working. “Brittany won't tell anyone where we are, right?”

The goddess looked even more confused than she already had, “I don't understand. Why don't you want to be found? Quinn is looking everywhere for you. She's so worried.”

“Quinn. Your twin sister? The goddess of hunting is trying to track you down, Blaine!”

Blaine grabbed his face in both hands, forcing Kurt to look at him. “Deep breaths. We're fine. She won't find us. Brittany only found us because I slipped up, okay? It's not going to happen again and she won't tell Quinn. Everything's going to be fine. Now please, take a deep breath.”

 Kurt complied, though he wasn't entirely convinced they were safe. Aphrodite watched the whole exchange with a complicated expression on her face before finally asking, in a small voice, why she couldn't tell Quinn that her brother was safe.

“She doesn't want me near him,” Blaine reluctantly explained.

“But why not? Is this her revenge for the whole Orion thing?”

Blaine visibly flinched at the name and took a step away from Kurt, a guilty expression on his face. “Um. No. she's… well she's never going to forgive me for that, but she's not… not actively looking for, uh, revenge. Anymore.”

“Then why wouldn't she want you near your soulmate?”

Kurt lost feeling in his legs and dropped to the ground. “Soulmate?!”

“It has nothing to do with that!” Blaine said in an overly cheery voice. “It's actually much more complicated! See… uh. Schue declared his whole family off limits a few years back, and, well. I didn't listen? So Quinn is against me… being near him.”

“I'm sorry, soulmate? What does that even mean?!” Kurt decided that if Blaine didn't stop ignoring him whenever he asked questions, he was going to start hitting him.

“Wait, why would Schue declare him off limits? Is this…” comprehension dawned on Brittany's face and Kurt felt oddly jealous that the situation was making sense to everyone except him. “Oh, Apollo. Why would you do something like that?”

“The whole thing was ridiculous! Schue didn't want us to help with the mother or the birth. I could deal with that. But Kurt was already born; it didn't make sense for us to have to stay away from him too!”

“Is he your soulmate then? Because I can only tell half of it.”

 Kurt watched as Blaine sighed heavily, ran a hand through his hair, before slumping in defeat. “I didn't want to tell him this, but… well if you're confirming it, then yes. He is.”

“If he's yours, then why would you run away together without telling him?”

“I am not his!” Kurt objected.

“He's right, I'm his,” Blaine said distractedly. Kurt felt his jaw drop but couldn't make the connection between his brain and mouth to close it. “But that's not why we're doing this. His dad's sick, we're trying to talk to Sebastian and get some help, but...”

“But you can't do that if he's off limits,” Brittany finished.

Blaine nodded miserably in response, pointedly ignoring looking anywhere near Kurt.

“Well, you're lucky that it turned out this way. If Puck had sensed you instead… but oh well. I'm sure you could tell between the two on your own if it's happening to you…”

“I guessed. Quinn was very fond of telling me that I had no way of actually knowing, but…”

Brittany sighed, “I have some bad news then.” Kurt tensed, waiting for the worst news possible, but Blaine still looked mostly resigned. “Quinn asked both of us for help… and I'm sure Puck has already sent out scouts…”

There was a pause after the implied question. It took Blaine a few seconds to put the pieces together, and when he did his face went white again. “The boar! Styx, I should've realized!”

“Please tell me you did not hurt the boar.”

“Kurt hurt it, I killed it. Styx!”

“What's going on?” Kurt finally asked.

“We performed an act of war against a war god. And if he finds us, then he'll tell Schue what we're doing and there might be an actual war.” He turned to Brittany, “Why would Ares do that?! I thought we were friends!”

“I'm sure you were until you killed his boar!”

“It attacked us!”

“That's what boars do!”

The two glared at each other before Blaine seemed to realize that they were wasting time. “Has Quinn talked to anyone else about me?”

“Um, I think she was only planning on telling me. Finding Puck was a… coincidence.”

“So she hasn't told Schue?”

“Nope,” Brittany said, looking abruptly cheerful. “He's been rather distracted. There's this redheaded woman he's found, you see. He wants to properly woo her rather than his, uh, usual methods. She's a bit… odd looking, if you ask me. Something is just wrong with her eyes, and she's married. But you know Schue… anyway, he's been as hard to track down as you while he's hiding from He—um. Terri.”

“If he's in hiding, then how did you find him?” Kurt asked.

There was an awkward pause, where Blaine looked horribly embarrassed while Brittany looked conflicted before finally admitting, “I can sense love. Wherever it is. It's not hard to find people that way if you know what you're looking for.”

Kurt dropped his head onto his knees and groaned. “You are not in love with me.”

“Of course not, that's completely ridiculous,” Blaine responded flatly.

“I hate to cause more problems, but uh… well, Puck and I were supposed to meet up to… discuss our progress with finding you! And…”

“He's on his way, isn't he?”

“Oh yes,” the goddess sounded far too happy about that. “Totally. So I think Kurt shouldn't be here.”

Before he had a chance to ask what that was supposed to mean, the world flipped upside down.