With nimble fingers, Kurt works to tuck it back into the towel. “It’s nothing. Nothing, I swear. Oh my God. Please forget you saw that.”

Blaine walks towards him on his knees. “Kurt, please – did you… did you hit your head when you fell in? Let me look. Please. You don’t have to hide it. Everyone outside feels bad for what happened.”

Kurt shakes his head (gently, he doesn’t want any more hair falling loose), and braces a hand against Blaine’s chest, trying to hold him further away. “I’m fine. I didn’t hit my head. Please just forget you saw that. I’m begging you, Blaine.”

But Blaine just grabs Kurt’s hand, holding it tightly in his own. “Kurt, I saw red. What other explanation is there? Please just let me see, baby.”

He tries to pull his hand free, and he succeeds – but he loses his balance. He was already gingerly balanced on his knees, trying to keep the towel still on his head, and Blaine’s hold on his hand is just tight enough that when Kurt pulls it free, he stumbles backwards.

His back hits the bowl of the toilet and he falls back off his knees into a sitting position on the floor, his back arching with the curve of the bowl. His neck follows the bow of his body, his head flying backwards, and the make-shift towel turban comes undone, falling in a tangled pile on the lid behind him.

It’s as if everything freezes in that moment. Kurt’s eyes fly open wide, and his hand comes up to his mouth. But he doesn’t move to cover his head up again. He doesn’t try to undo what’s been done. He simply freezes, staring at Blaine with a look that can only be described as a mixture of terror and regret.

It takes Blaine a moment to move too. His jaw drops, and he just stares at Kurt, as if his brain can’t quite process what he’s seeing. But eventually he slides forward, his hand running slowly through Kurt’s hair.

“It’s – dry?” he questions.

Kurt just nods.

“And it’s... it’s red?”

Silently still, Kurt closes his eyes and drops his head, nodding, swallowing painfully hard.

“And it wasn’t red earlier,” Blaine says, his voice still sounding completely dumbfounded.

“No, it wasn’t,” Kurt whispers in return.

Blaine’s fingers slow in his hair, pinching a few strands delicately and holding them out towards the light, as if that will somehow reveal how they’ve magically transformed colors since earlier that afternoon.

“How-…”

Kurt cuts him off, saying, “The water.” He brings his gaze back up to Blaine’s then. “It was cold.”

Blaine’s eyebrows furrow together. “Last time I checked, cold water didn’t change hair color. Otherwise we’d all have different color hair now.”

And then Kurt just starts laughing quietly. He buries his face in his hands to try to stifle the giggles, but they just keep coming, because really, the whole situation is just ridiculous. He’s sitting in front of his very much gay boyfriend in nothing but a towel looking like a girl (which, by the way, he’s surprised that Blaine hasn’t mentioned any of his facial changes yet – they may be subtle, but they’re still very much there), with his hair as red as a bowl of tomato soup, and he has no idea how to explain what’s going on. How do you explain to the person you’ve been dating that you secretly have a female form that you’ve just casually neglected to mention?

Kurt just keeps fighting to contain his laughter, barely noticing when Blaine clears his throat softly. Eventually he swipes his hands under his eyes and takes as deep breath, regaining some semblance of a normal breathing pattern.

Blaine clears his throat again, and Kurt looks up at him, his head cocked to the side in a question. “Sorry, I just – this whole thing is ridiculous, and I don’t even know how to begin to explain this, if you’ll even believe me at all, and I-…”

Another quiet cough, and Blaine is suddenly finding the ceiling very interesting.

“What – what is it, Blaine?”

He runs a hand down his face and in a strained voice, says, “You let go of the towel.”

Kurt’s face drops in an instant, his hands flying up to grab ahold of the cloth again. It had stayed relatively in place, having been underneath him where he was sitting and hooked tightly under his arms, but letting go of the fabric bunched up over his heart was enough. Enough for it to fall open just slightly.

Enough for him to see that Kurt suddenly and most definitely is not a boy.

He pushes himself into a standing position, making sure the towel is wrapped tightly around himself again, and opens the door. His eyes are downcast once again when he starts talking, only this time, he doesn’t try to mask the change in his tone of voice. There’s no point. He knows now. “You can go. I won’t – I won’t tell anyone why you left. Your keys are in my bag in the room. I’ll catch a ride home with Finn or something. Maybe Mercedes.”

Blaine stands and walks slowly towards Kurt, like a man who’s been called to his death. “You – is that what you want?”

Kurt shakes his head, tears threatening to spill over already. “But I’m not going to try to make you stay. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.”

“Kurt, look at me.” (He refuses.) “I love you. You – you have to believe that. More than anything else, you have to believe that.”

Another violent shake of the head, and Kurt pushes Blaine’s arm slightly with his free hand, urging him towards the door. “You don’t have to pretend. Please.”

But Blaine shrugs his arm off and pushes past Kurt, braces his hand in the middle of the door, and pushes it closed with a heavy hand. “I’m not leaving.”

Kurt’s voice is as quiet as ever when he finally speaks again. “But you’re gay.”

Blaine nods. “I am. And you were very much a boy the last time I saw you naked. So either this is a really weird dream that one of us is going to wake up from or you should explain what’s going on.”

“It’s – it’s a really long story.”

Blaine hops up onto the counter and sits, looking back at Kurt. “Well, I kind of told the rest of New Directions off before I ran in here to find you, so I doubt they’ll be coming to check up on us. We have time. Or at least enough time for the basics.”

Kurt sighs. “And there’s no way I can convince you to wait until we get home to talk about this?”

He doesn’t even have to look up to know that Blaine is shaking his head in the negative. Resigned to his fate, Kurt grabs his wet swimsuit and shirt, pulling both back on, and wraps the towel around him again – this time purely for warmth – before sitting down on the lid of the toilet again.

“Okay. Where should I begin?”

“Just start at the beginning.”

Kurt gives a weak smile. “A very good place to start.”

Blaine leans over and grabs his hand, running his thumb gently across the soft pad of muscle below his thumb. “There’s my Kurt.” He smiles and gives Kurt’s hand a squeeze, and Kurt can’t help but think it’s the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen, because for some reason Blaine is still sitting there.

“I never went anywhere,” he says quietly, though he knows it’s kind of a lie. Obviously his male form has disappeared for the time being.

“No, you didn’t.”

Kurt take a deep breath before he starts speaking again. “I – uhm, I guess you’ve kind of figured out the basics on your own?”

“I think so,” Blaine replies, his voice a bit hesitant. “If you fall in cold water, you – you turn into a girl?”

“Almost. It – I don’t have to fall. If someone throws water on me, that’ll do it too. And it’s really… anything less than body temperature water. That’s why I didn’t change when Puck hit me with the hose. The water was really hot after sitting in the sun all day.” He swallows, fingers toying with the hem of his shirt. “It has to be a decent amount of water. I’d guess around a bucketful.

“Unfortunately, the slushies at school are enough. I usually will be able to take a shower in the locker room to change back, but on the – rare occasion that I don’t have time because of a test or something, I keep extra clothes in my locker. I – I always have two extra sets of clothes in there. One is a more normal outfit for me, for when I have time to change back, and one is looser so that I can, uhm, avoid questions. I have a hat to go with whatever that outfit is too, so no one questions the-“ he broke off, gesturing to his hair.

Blaine just nods as Kurt talks, trying to take it all in. “So why…” He trails off, not sure how to phrase exactly what he wants to ask.

“Why does this happen?” Kurt supplies.

Exhaling slowly, thankful he understands, Blaine nods again.

“We don’t know.”

“What do you mean? And who is we?”

Kurt looks up at him, his smile faltering a bit. “Uhm, my – my father and I. He’s the only other one who knows. It wasn’t… I didn’t always…”

Blaine slides off the countertop and moves to sit on the edge of the tub, closer to Kurt. He moves to run his hand slowly down his back, giving him a questioning look to make sure it’s okay. Kurt nods, and the pressure behind Blaine’s hand picks up a bit.

“This didn’t always happen. There was – an accident. When I was six.”