Take Me Out Of This Dull World

Blaine was seven years old the summer his life changed forever.  It was on a beautiful, sunny day that was otherwise very ordinary, and he was outside playing in the meadow with his best friends, Wes and David.  They were tossing and kicking a pretty golden ball Blaine had found a few weeks before, until one ill-placed kick sent the ball flying too far in the wrong direction.  Just like that, his prized ball was lost to him within the thick trees of the forest.

The boys weren’t allowed to go into the forest.

But no one was around, Blaine noted as he glanced warily at Marcy, his nanny who was supposed to be watching them but was currently slumped in a chair several feet away, sleeping soundly.  It was quickly decided that one of them would need to go and fetch the ball which, after all, didn’t look as though it had traveled too deeply into the woods.  The other two would stay behind for cover, just in case Marcy woke up.

Blaine quickly volunteered himself.  “I am a prince, after all,” he reasoned out loud.  “It won’t be as bad for me if we get caught.”

And so he found himself pushing through clusters of trees, his eyes scanning the ground for a hint of gold and finding none.  Until he stepped into a clearing and froze.

There, swinging his legs back and forth over the edge of a stone fountain, sat a tiny boy.  A beautiful boy, Blaine thought, taking in his delicate features, his simple green tunic and brown trousers, and the shimmery white wings that were folded at his back.  He couldn’t be more than four inches tall.

“Hello,” the boy said, grinning up at him impishly and startling Blaine, who shifted his gaze to meet with almost imperceptible pricks of blue.  “I’m Kurt.  Who are you?”

Blaine quickly got over his shock and reminded himself to behave diplomatically, as he had been taught.  “My name is Blaine,” he answered politely.  “I’m sorry, but… what are you?”  Ok, so in retrospect that might have been worded a bit more tactfully.

“Rude much?” Kurt retorted, but his tone was jovial.  “I’m a fairy, silly.  Haven’t you ever seen a fairy before?”

“No,” Blaine answered honestly.  There were fairies in some of his story books, but Blaine had never imagined that they might be real!  “I’m actually not allowed to be here, but my friends and I were playing and we lost our ball.  Have you seen it?”

Kurt’s little face rearranged into what Blaine thought might be a smirk, and he pointed down into the fountain.  “You’re lucky,” he told Blaine.  “That thing almost killed me, and that would have meant a whole world of bad luck for you!”

“I’m sorry,” Blaine said, and he meant it.  There was already something about Kurt that he very much liked.  He stepped forward and peered into the fountain, noting with some dismay that it was so deep he couldn’t even see the bottom, let alone his ball.  “Well, looks like that’s a loss then,” he thought out loud.

Kurt stood up and walked over, stopping beside Blaine’s arm and glancing down into the water as well.  “Or,” he paused, “I could see if Finn will get it for you.”

“Finn?” Blaine asked, looking around himself to confirm that yes, they were alone.

“Yes, Finn.”  Kurt sounded almost exasperated, and he pointed to a frog sitting across the fountain from them that Blaine had overlooked. 

Blaine was confused, and it must have shown because Kurt began giggling the moment the expression appeared on his face.  “He’s not really a frog, you know,” Kurt informed him as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.  “He’s my stepbrother.”

“Ok, explain that!”  Blaine knew he sounded a bit testy, but it was beginning to feel far too much like Kurt was making fun of him.

“He messed with the wrong witch fairy,” Kurt informed him, matter-of-fact and haughty.  “This was how she paid him back.  Now he has to find a girl to kiss him.”  He shrugged.  “You think it’d be easy, given that he’s a prince now and all, but Finn tends to have bad luck with the ladies…”

“Wait, prince?  Doesn’t that make you a prince, too?”

Kurt nodded.  “Well of course, dummy, my father is the King!”

“Mine too,” Blaine said, without really thinking.

“Well, then, I suppose we have something in common!  We should be friends.”

Blaine considered this for a minute, weighing the funny fairy’s snarkiness against his own curiosity and quickly reaching the conclusion that such a relationship should, if nothing else, prove interesting and informative.  He would simply have to find a way to keep it from his father.

“I’d like that,” he announced at last.

Kurt smiled at this and hopped up and down a little.  “Great!  Now, about your ball…”

It was several more minutes before Blaine made it back to Wes and David, the golden ball weighing heavily in his pocket and excitement from the unexpected encounter filling him with energy.  But when he told his friends the incredible story of how a frog fetched his ball from the pond, something stopped him from mentioning Kurt.  Everything in his life was laid out for him just so, but Kurt was different.  Kurt would be his special friend.

And his dearest secret.

*******

At first, Blaine slipped away to visit Kurt sporadically.  The two friends soon found, however, that this plan was perhaps not the best as half the time the boys missed each other and Blaine’s risk came to nothing.  And so, they soon decided to meet on a regular schedule: every five days at two in the afternoon.  This worked out for Blaine because he always had play time scheduled then, even on Sundays, which meant all he had to do was play get-away-from-Marcy (one of his favorite games) and then find her again within the next two hours.  She never told his parents because then she would be in trouble, and the staggered days meant no one got suspicious.  It was the perfect system.

Until September, when Kurt informed Blaine one day that his family would be leaving the next week. 

“Fairies migrate,” he explained.  “We can’t stand the cold so we have a second home during the winter, south of here, called Lima.  We won’t be back until April.”

Blaine wanted to be angry at Kurt, wanted to yell at him and accuse him of abandonment, until he realized that Kurt looked as sad as Blaine felt. 

It was a long winter, but upon reuniting the boys picked up their friendship right where it left off, and so it continued for several years.

*******

The summer that Blaine turned twelve he was startled awake one night by a gentle tapping at his window.  Perplexed, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stumbled out of bed, yanking open the window none-too gently and peering out into the darkness.

And there was Kurt, fluttering excitedly in the air in front of him.

“I can fly now, Blaine!  I was old enough to learn over the winter!”  Not waiting for an invitation, he flew into the room, settling on Blaine’s bed with his back propped up against the edge of a pillow.

“That’s great,” Blaine offered, still half-asleep but attempting to sound enthusiastic, which, to be honest, he was.  Kurt is back!  He thought, feeling his heart beat pick up a little in his chest.

“I had to sneak out to come here, but it was so worth it!  I couldn’t wait to see you and show off.”

Blaine smiled at him, spreading out next to Kurt on the bed and curling towards him.  “I missed you,” he said honestly. 

“I missed you too,” Kurt said, beaming up at him.  “I’m so glad to be back, we can be together now whenever we want!  Well, at night at least, so long as my father doesn’t find out.”

“Are you really sure he would freak, if he knew?  I mean, I’m only one person, and we’re kids.  No one else knows that we’re friends.  I’m not dangerous…”

Kurt sighed, twisting his little hands together in his lap.  “Of course you aren’t, Blaine.  My dad is a very accepting person, generally, just… not about this.  Not about humans, what with the history and stuff but… I have to tell you something.”

Blaine was frowning now, but he waited patiently for Kurt to continue.

“Umm… about what you said about no one knowing about us.  That’s not exactly true anymore.  I may have told Rachel… and Mercedes.”

“You what!”  Blaine sat up quickly and Kurt bounced a little on the bed from the impact of the mattress.  “You know why we keep this is a secret!  It’s for your own good, from what you’ve said.”  And plus it totally wasn’t fair that Kurt got to tell his friends, but Blaine couldn’t tell Wes and David.

Kurt winced.  “I know, I know… but Rachel and I got a lot closer this year—she kissed Finn, he’s finally a fairy again, but more on that later—so she was around more and it turns out we have a lot in common, despite how annoying she can be.  I didn’t mean to tell her.  She kind of wrung it out of me, you know, she’s just like that.  And then Mercedes was jealous because we were getting so close and she somehow figured out that Rachel knew something that she didn’t and… it was a big mess, terrible, and I just had to tell her.  She’s my best friend!”  He paused, “aside from you, of course.”

Blaine nodded, accepting.  “I guess it is more your secret than mine, now that I’m allowed to know you exist and go into the forest and all.”  This was a half-truth.  Blaine had learned about the existence of fairies, along with other creatures that lived in the forest, in class over the winter.  He was allowed to go in the forest now, but it was with the understanding that doing so was not encouraged—the treaty the King had agreed upon with the fairies just over a century ago forbid disturbing them or deliberately making contact with their world.  The forest itself remained neutral territory, but everyone knew that the fairies dwelled there through the summer months.

Kurt beamed at him, his smile lighting up his whole face.  “This is going to be the best summer ever, you’ll see!”

As it turned out, Kurt was right… until the next summer, and the summer after that…

*******

Blaine was fifteen when he realized that he was gay, and he was sixteen when he realized that being gay was a very terrible thing, according to his father, and would not be permissible in the grand scheme of things.  Fortunately, he realized this before doing anything stupid (like coming out.)  Unfortunately, it proved to be a very difficult thing to fake being straight and after the ball held in honor of his seventeenth birthday—during which his mother tried her best to match him with the most eligible maidens in the kingdom—he cried himself to sleep every night for a week.

It was December, and Kurt wasn’t even around to confide in or console him.   He wasn’t certain how Kurt would react to the news, but he knew he would confide in the fairy as soon as he had the chance.  He told Kurt everything.

He spent the next months planning it out in his head, running a million different scenarios through his mind.  In most, Kurt was accepting, and he found himself longing more than ever for the day his friend would return.  He planned to tell him immediately because even in the worst-case scenario, at least then someone would know.

When Kurt finally appeared at his window one evening in late April, however, he looked so dejected that Blaine found himself choking back the words.

“Oh, Kurt,” he exclaimed as the fairy fluttered inside, his head down and tears streaking down his cheeks.  “What happened?”

Kurt immediately curled up into a little ball on Blaine’s bed, and Blaine cuddled up behind him, cupping a comforting hand around his friends back.

“My dad… he’s,” Kurt trailed off as another sob broke through.  “He’s promised me in marriage to someone.  Karofsky.”  He spit the name out, as if the very sounds tasted bitter in his mouth.  “It won’t happen for another few years, at least, but… oh, Blaine, I hate him!  He was so terrible to me when we were children, and he’s ugly and brutish…”

“Him?” Blaine couldn’t help but ask, because as terrible as he felt for his friend that detail was too intriguing for Blaine to overlook.

“I’m gay, didn’t you know?  Oh, I just assumed…I’m sorry, it’s something we’re born knowing, and it just never seemed pertinent… everyone else knows… I can’t believe I never thought to tell you!”  His sobs abruptly stopped, his breath hitching as he finally untucked his head and looked up at Blaine, an expression of pure terror on his face.  “Oh gods, you don’t care, do you?  I never thought…”

Blaine thought of making his own confession, but it didn’t seem right, somehow, when he needed so badly to reassure Kurt.  “Of course not, Kurt.  I mean—I care!   I always care about you!  But nothing you tell me is going to change that.”

Kurt expression softened.  “Thank gods.”  He buried his face in his hands.  “Oh Blaine, this is such a mess!  What am I going to do?”

“Shh, we’ll think of something,” he soothed, rolling onto his back and picking Kurt up to perch on top of his chest.  Kurt always liked that. 

Sure enough, he clutched bits of Blaine’s shirt in his tiny hands and snuggled down into the fabric.  “Thank you, Blaine,” he said, now sounding tired.  “I always feel better when I’m with you.”

As Kurt drifted off to sleep, Blaine lay still and wide awake, something new twisting deep in his gut that was both wonderful and utterly terrifying.

*******

It was a few more weeks before Blaine found the right time and place to confess his own sexuality to Kurt, who had a difficult time understanding why it was such an issue for humans.  Blaine wasn’t very good at explaining, because he didn’t understand either.

When they parted at the end of the summer, neither of their problems had been solved.  The separation filled Blaine with an entirely new level of dread.  It was more than just losing the one friend that truly knew and understood him, but Blaine couldn’t put his finger on exactly why the feeling was so much worse.  Kurt looked sadder than usual, too, at their final meeting, and that certainly didn’t help Blaine feel any better. 

He hoped the months would pass quickly, but somehow knew that this year they would drag on.

*******

When April finally came, Blaine found himself waiting up almost every night in hopes that Kurt would appear.  During the day, he would steal away into the forest as often as possible—not an easy feat now that his training to become king occupied even more of his time—but Kurt was never there.

Until the day that he was there, sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of the fountain as usual, heaving pebbles from a little pile beside him into the water.

“Blaine!” he looked up, startled.  “I was going to come see you tonight, I swear I was!  We’ve only been back for a week…”

“A week?” Blaine cut him off.  “Do you have any idea how badly I’ve missed you?  You’re usually here by now, I was worried sick!”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said quietly, his eyes pleading with Blaine.  “My father keeps a better watch on me, now that I’m soon to be married.  It’s harder to get away.”

“Married?”

Kurt bowed his head.  “Yes, this winter.  I was eighteen in February…”

The resignation in Kurt’s voice felt like a fist clenching around Blaine’s heart.  “I thought you were going to fight this?” he practically spat, knowing it was not the best response but unable to bring himself to care.  “This isn’t the Kurt that I know.”

Kurt flew up towards him, hovering right in front of his face.  Blaine blanched at the tracks of tears that he could now see streaking down Kurt’s cheeks.  “Don’t you think I want to!” the fairy retorted angrily.  “Marrying that brute is the last thing I want to do, even if he has made strides to be nicer lately.  I’ll never forgive him, but I don’t have a choice!  My life is about responsibility to my father, to my kingdom!  I thought you of all people would understand that!”

“Kurt…” Blaine was startled by how broken his own voice sounded.  He studied the small boy, no, man, in front of him.  Kurt had definitely filled out over the winter, his shoulders now broader, the tiny curves of his arms a little more pronounced.  Blaine thought he might have gotten a little taller, too, but it was hard to tell.  He was beautiful.

And all at once, Blaine knew why it was that he felt so angry, why he felt so empty when Kurt wasn’t around.  Because Kurt was never, could never be just Blaine’s friend.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, lifting his hand to trail a finger down Kurt’s wet cheek in what he hoped was a soothing gesture.

Kurt leaned into the touch for a moment before breaking down sobbing, curling around himself and burrowing down against the palm of Blaine’s hand.

“Kurt…” Blaine tried again, struggling to find the right words to comfort him.  “You said Karofsky was trying, maybe things will work out and it won’t be so ba—“

“He still won’t be you!”

Kurt froze as soon as the words had left his mouth, even his wings going completely still.  And then he was up before Blaine could fully process it, flying away.

“Where are you going?” Blaine demanded, running after him.  But Kurt didn’t answer, and he was moving too quickly for Blaine to follow.  “Please, Kurt, wait!”  Kurt still ignored him.

“I love you!” he cried out loudly, exasperated.

Kurt stopped, whipped around.  “What?”

“I love you,” Blaine repeated more slowly.  “Gods, I’m in love with you!”

Kurt was shaking his head as if in a daze.  “You can’t.  You’re human, I’m—I’m a fairy.”

Blaine scoffed.  “And when has love ever followed that kind of logic?”

For a while, neither of them spoke again or moved, studying each other carefully.  Then, Kurt broke the silence.  “Last year, last summer I went to my stepmother and asked her if there was any way for a fairy to become human.  I knew she wouldn’t tell my father if I told her not to.”

Blaine gasped.  “Why would you ask about that?”

Kurt flew closer to him, eyes sparkling from all his tears.  “I love you, too,” he said softly.

It took Blaine a moment to process that, the feeling slowly settling deep within him, not good and certainly not bad, but so very right.  “What did you stepmother say?”

“That it could be done, but I would lose my magic, my wings, my voice… it would all be gone.”

Blaine nodded, looking down at his hands.

And then Kurt was flying at him, tucking his body under Blaine’s chin and cuddling into his neck.

“Oh Blaine.  I want to show you so much and I just don’t know how!”

“I know,” Blaine whispered, bringing a hand up to cradle Kurt against him.  “Kurt, I know.”

*******

After that, the spent any time they had huddling near each other, trying desperately to get closer.  It felt good and right and never enough, but because of the difference in their sizes it was all they had.  Blaine tried hard not to think about how this summer was all they had, too.  After Kurt was married off (no, handed over, he corrected himself) to Karofsky he would be staying with him in his kingdom, McKinley, through the summer, and Kurt wasn’t sure when he would be permitted back at Dalton.

One evening midsummer, long past the usual hour that Kurt would visit should he be able, Blaine found himself lost once again in thoughts of Kurt, his beautiful face, the broad line of his shoulders and the perfect taper of his hips, his wings that, now that he was older, would reflect the most marvelous array of colors in the sunlight.  As was the case more often than not, his thoughts were laced heavily with arousal.  He trailed his hand down across his own stomach and lower, and was met with a familiar hardness.

Shucking off his pajama bottoms without much thought, he wrapped his hand around himself and began to tug just so, grunting with relief and picturing in his mind the hand of a larger version of Kurt in place of his own.  Or maybe more than just a hand…

He was startled from his thoughts a moment later by a familiar gasp, his eyes shooting open and head turning to find Kurt perched on the edge of his windowsill, staring at Blaine in shock.

“Kurt!” His hand flew to grasp the sheets he knew were somewhere at the bottom of his bed, but met mostly air on the first few attempts.  Finally, he found it and yanked it up quickly to cover himself.  “I was… I mean, I just…”

“It’s ok, Blaine.  I do it myself, too, you know.”

Was Kurt blushing!?

“I… didn’t expect you this late.”

“It was hard to get away,” he shrugged, “but I just really felt like I needed to see you.”

“I’m glad you came,” Blaine reassured him hastily.  “I always want to see you.  Just… could you give me a moment to get dressed?” 

“Do you have to?”

Blaine was fumbling for his pants, and it took him a moment to realize what Kurt had said.  “Wait… what?”

Kurt was blushing again.

“I’d… I’d really like to see you, Blaine.  Isn’t that something that people in love do?  Don’t tell me that you haven’t… thought about it.”

It was Blaine’s turn to blush.  “I should think that’s obvious, given what you just walked in on.”

“You were thinking of me?”

Blaine nodded.  “Who else?  I mean… if that’s ok.”

“Of course,” Kurt answered breathily.  “I… think of you, too, sometimes.”

“Could I… I’d like to see you too.”

What little color Kurt possessed drained from his face.  “You can… but there’s something you should know first.”

Blaine didn’t speak, only looking at Kurt curiously, so he continued.

“I… don’t look quite like other men.  You remember that you were surprised that it was acceptable for me to marry a boy?  Fairies are very accepting of sexuality in general, but because I’m royal, our magic provides for special… accommodations, in cases like mine.”

“You’re confusing me here, Kurt,” Blaine admitted.

“When a royal fairy is born gay, it changes our bodies so that we can be assured to have heirs.”  He studied his hands, cheeks reddening once more as he continued his confession.  “I have a penis, but I have a vagina too.  So if necessary, I can bear children.”

Blaine inhaled sharply, mind racing.  “Ok,” he said after a long moment.  “That’s a little… different.”

Kurt was curling in on himself before the words had even left his mouth, and Blaine realized in a fleet of despair his mistake.

“Oh, no, Kurt,” he said, scooping the fairy up and cradling him against his chest, forgetting at once his own nudity.  “This doesn’t change anything about my feelings.  Nothing could do that.  I love you, and I don’t care about convention.  We’re already vastly different sizes, anyway.  This is our relationship, and I promise you we’ll find a way to make it work for us.”

Kurt finally looked up at Blaine, tears clouding his pretty blue eyes but expression hopeful.  “I love you, too.”

Blaine smiled at him cheesily.  “Good.  Now that that’s established, I’d really love to see my boyfriend naked!”

Kurt got up and flew a little away from him.  “Your wish is my command!”  But as he grasped the edge of his shirt, he looked a little hesitant.  “Ummm… I might feel a little better if you looked away for this part.  Sorry, I’m just not ready…”

“For a strip tease?” Blaine answered for him.  “I guess that’s probably for the best.”  He covered his eyes and spun around obediently, dropping the blanket from around his hips after a moment’s thought.

“I’m ready,” Kurt’s voice, a little nervous, sounded after a few moments.

And Blaine turned around.

If he thought before that the Kurt of his fantasies was beautiful, the image before him put all those dreams to shame.  Kurt was like a miniature god… broad shoulders, tapered waste, slim long legs—all covered in the softest looking porcelain skin.  His wings, of course, set him apart, but only in the sense of making him even more ethereal.  

“Thoughts?” Kurt said eventually, interrupting Blaine’s staring and reminding him suddenly that Kurt must have been similarly looking at him.

“I’m sorry, it’s just… you’re breathtaking.  Quite literally, Kurt.”

Kurt’s answering smile was all the assurance he needed.  “I was thinking along those same lines myself,” he offered.  And even though Blaine didn’t believe them, the words were still nice to hear.

“Can I touch you?”  Because now that he could see him, Blaine wanted to so, so badly.

“Yes,” Kurt all but whispered, flying a little closer.

Blaine’s hand trembled as he reached out to Kurt, trailing one finger over his face, down his neck and chest and lower.  Kurt shivered as he did so, leaning into the touch, and it wasn’t long before Blaine realized he was growing hard.  Sliding his finger even more carefully down the length of Kurt’s cock, he gently parted legs, the pad of Blaine’s finger meeting with warm, wet heat.

“Do you have…?”

“Balls?  Not exactly.  I have testicles, but they’re inside.”

Blaine nodded, accepting this as if it made perfect sense.

“You’re so wet… I never thought… does it feel good?”

Kurt gave a little snort that Blaine would have found funny under any other circumstances.  “Unbelievable,” he answered as he grinded down into Blaine’s finger.

After thinking for a minute, Blaine brought his other hand up to gently grasp Kurt’s cock between thumb and pointer finger, rubbing up and down.

“Oh gods, Blaine!”

It wasn’t long before Kurt was rocking back and forth against him sporadically, uttering streams of nonsensical words and making high-pitched half-moan sounds that were making Blaine himself impossibly harder.

“Blaine…” Kurt cried out.  “Blaine I’m going to…”

And then there was a new wetness on Blaine’s hands, spurting onto him in little streams.  Blaine waited until Kurt was finished before lifting the small fairy up to his lips, planting a gentle kiss on the top of his head.  Then he placed Kurt on the bed, bringing his hand up to suck curiously on his fingers.

“Wow, Kurt, you taste like ambrosia!  Nothing at all like me…”

Kurt smiled up at him.  “One of the perks of being a fairy, I guess… but Blaine, how am I going to take care of you?”

Blaine looked down, having somehow forgotten his own erection.  “Oh.  There’s no need…”

“Really, Blaine, I want to.  I need to give you something!”

Blaine frowned a little.  “I understand, Kurt, I do… but I just don’t see how…”

The crestfallen look on Kurt’s face tore Blaine’s heart to pieces.

“You’re amazing, Kurt, and believe me—you star in all my fantasies.  You always have.  If we were the same size…”

“Maybe I could tell you?  What I’d do for you if I could.  What I want to do to you…” Kurt suggested his voice small and tentative.

“That…” Blaine swallowed thickly.  “That could be good.”

And so Kurt spent the night on Blaine’s stomach, watching Blaine’s hand move over his length with increasing speed and intensity as he told Blaine all the desires of his heart, until Blaine at last came with a grunt, his cum streaking up to fall across Kurt’s body and splatter his wings.

Kurt fell asleep there, after, curled close against Blaine’s body as he, too, drifted off into a contented sleep, hoping he would wake early enough in the morning to send Kurt off before he would be missed, but praying, at the same time, the morning would somehow never come.  That he and Kurt could be here, together, for the rest of all time.

*******

As the summer continued, Kurt seemed to withdraw into himself even as he and Blaine grew ever closer.  It pained Blaine to see the little fairy so melancholy—he could almost always make Kurt smile, but it would fade away quickly as the sadness in his eyes never did.  Blaine encouraged him to talk about it but stopped short of pushing, unwilling to taint what might very well be the last few months they would ever have to be together.

Then, in late August, everything came to a sudden, brutal head.  It began for Blaine with the appearance of Rachel at his window one night.  He had never before met the fairy who had years ago saved Kurt’s brother from spending his life as a frog, but he recognized her almost immediately from Kurt’s many stories of the girl’s great theatrics.

She was hysterical.

“Rachel?” he questioned, praying he was right.

“Blaine?  Oh, thank God!  Please, you have to come with me—Kurt’s done something awful!”

He was pulling on his clothes before Rachel had even finished her sentence, mindless of her eyes on him.

“I’ll meet you downstairs, you can tell me what happened on the way,” Blaine informed her before slipping out the door, mind racing as he rushed through the palace.  Each thought he had was more dismal than the last.

“He’s at the fountain,” Rachel informed him when they met, already flying ahead as Blaine hastened to keep up.  “I just managed to get him there using my magic…”

Relief swept through him at the confirmation that Kurt was, at least, still alive, but her words were far from comforting.  “Spill,” he ordered.

“It’s all my fault,” Rachel began, her voice breaking.  “Me and my big mouth—I let something slip in front of King Burt today, and he found out… about you.”

Blaine let his fists clench, fight the immediate spike of anger that shot through to his very core.  “I see.  Did his father hurt him?”

Rachel looked dazed for a moment.  “Oh, no!  King Burt would never do that, he loves Kurt in spite of being a little closed off to his feelings.  The King forbid him from seeing you again, and Kurt was so devastated… he went to see the Witch.”  Her final words were hushed, almost as though she was afraid to utter them.

“The Witch?  Why would he need a witch, when he has his own magic?”

“She’s a fairy witch, of course, and her magic is far darker than ours… and dangerous.  Oh Blaine, he asked her to make him human!  I knew he was thinking it, but I never thought he’d go through with it!  Not if it meant giving up his voice!”

Blaine almost stopped, a little shocked.  “He gave up his voice?  He gave up his voice… for me?”  Kurt had the most beautiful voice Blaine had ever heard, as was fitting for a fairy.  The music fed their magic, even as their magic enhanced their music.  Blaine had a decent voice, himself, for a human, and singing together was one of their favorite pastimes.

“And his magic,” Rachel said solemnly.  “Such a price, and look where it got him!  The Witch is never fair, after all, I did warn him!”

They had reached the clearing now, so familiar to Blaine from childhood, but the crumpled body that lie at the foot of the fountain made the scene suddenly horrendous.

“Kurt,” he breathed, rushing forward and falling to his knees.

Kurt lay naked, now human-sized, curled in a tight ball and oblivious to their presence.  His skin was deathly pale, and he was trembling badly.  More terrifying than any of this, however, were the red, ugly gashes ripping across his back—still dripping blood—where his wings once were. 

“The spell ripped them off,” Rachel said in a whisper.

Tentatively, Blaine reached out a hand and placed it on Kurt’s bare shoulder.

If Kurt felt it at all, he gave no indication.

“Oh Kurt, why?” Blaine asked as he wrapped himself around the shaking boy.  But in his heart he already knew the answer.

Kurt did respond this time, whimpering and clutching Blaine’s arms tightly to his chest.

Blaine looked at Rachel where she now hovered near Kurt’s face.  “You need to get his father, Rachel.  You need to get the King.  I can’t help with this; we humans don’t have magic.”

Rachel nodded fearfully.  “Stay with him,” she cautioned.

Blaine met her eyes.  “I could never leave.”

*******

It seemed like hours, waiting for Burt, and under any other circumstances Blaine would be terrified at the mere thought of coming face to face with the Fairy King (Kurt’s father!,) but now his thoughts were only of Kurt’s well being.  He tried to make Kurt more comfortable, whispered soothing words into his ear and placed gentle kisses on his brow, but it seemed to no avail.

Blaine expected Burt to be furious, but when the King arrived, his expression was instead one of the deepest sorrow.

“Gods, Kurt, what your mother would think if she could see what I’ve let you come to!” Burt exclaimed, reaching out his tiny hand to brush against his son’s cheek.

He looked up at Blaine, and his face visibly hardened.  “He did this for you.”

There was no accusation in the voice; it was a simple statement of fact.  But the underlying hate was so glaring and Blaine didn’t know what to say.  He clutched at Kurt tighter, burying his face for a moment in Kurt’s shoulder just above his wound.  The porcelain skin there was gleaming when he pulled away, and Blaine realized for the first time that he was crying.

“Your kind have only ever been a danger to us,” Burt was continuing.  “I always taught Kurt that—that nothing good would come of associating with you humans, and now this!”

“I didn’t know,” Blaine found his voice, though he wasn’t sure who he was speaking to.  “I didn’t know anything about this.  I would never want this.  I love him!”

Burt was looking at him differently, now.  The sadness was still there, but it wasn’t quite the same.  “Humans are not capable of love…” he began, as if explaining something to a small child.

“Kurt is beautiful and good.  His voice is magical.  He’s been my truest friend since childhood.  He can make me laugh, and he can make me cry.  How could I not love him?  How could anyone?”

Burt sighed.  “Maybe you do, kid,” he conceded.  “But he can’t stay like this.  Surely you can see that.”

Blaine nodded, looking away from Burt and trying to focus on the feeling of Kurt’s body against his.  “I know.”

“I can’t fix this, but I know someone who maybe can… I need to take him away, so he can heal.  So this can be made right again.”

“Will he… can they really put him back the way he was before?  He’ll have his wings back, his magic, his voice?”

“I hope so.  Gods, I really hope so.”

They were quiet for a long moment, until Burt broke the silence.

“I need to take him now.  Please… he’s suffering.”

With a sob that sounded animalistic even to Blaine himself, he pulled himself forcibly but carefully from Kurt, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead before standing.  “Take care of him?” he pleaded.

Burt nodded, already lifting Kurt with some sort of magic, and Blaine turned to go, each step away from Kurt more painful than the last.

He was nearly out of the clearing when Burt’s voice halted his steps.

“Kid…” Blaine stopped, didn’t turn around.  “Don’t blame yourself.  It’s… I could have done better by him, too.  If I had listened…”

“I know whose fault this is,” Blaine interrupted.  And then he ran out of there, heart breaking a little more with each brush of his feet against the ground.

*******

The days and weeks and months as they dragged past were an entirely new kind of torture, but in spite of this Blaine couldn’t have told you one thing to distinguish each from the next.  He existed in a hopeless haze, filling each monotonous day with his royalty training and every spare moment with exercise.  Sometimes it did help him to actually sleep at night, but when nothing could his extreme exhaustion was at the very least numbing.

His father couldn’t be more pleased, feeling that his son was finally settling down into the patterns he’d been born to follow.

This meant his father bothered him less, thankfully.  Unfortunately, it also meant his mother bothered him more.  Seeing that he was now so “dedicated,” she was even more eager to find him a suitable bride.  With no way out and, really, no reason to care, Blaine eventually acquiesced and allowed her to plan a ball during which he was to “choose the woman of his dreams.”  Ironically, the ball was scheduled for night of the winter solstice—the very night that Kurt, if he was indeed well again, was meant to be married.

Blaine was dealing with all of this very well, thank you, which was to say not at all.  Until one day about a week into November, when Wes and David finally managed to corner him.

 “Blaine, what gives?” David started.

“You’ve been avoiding us, you’ve done a complete one-eighty in your approach to becoming king one day, and don’t think we haven’t noticed you’re in some kind of funk!” Wes lectured.

“It’s nothing, guys… I’ve just come to realize how important it is to take my future seriously…”

“Bullshit, Blaine.  This is not you, and this is not the way you treat your friends!”

“Yeah!” David cut in again.  “And don’t try to tell us this has nothing to do with that fairy friend of yours you’ve been hiding…”

He stopped abruptly when Wes shot him a glare.

“You… you know about that?”

Wes sighed.  “For a few years now.  We know a lot of things you never tell us, Blaine.  That’s what makes us such good friends, and you such a lousy one.”

Blaine winced, not even trying to hide it, because that was true and it stung.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, looking away from them.  “Kurt’s gone now, and I don’t think he’s coming back.”

“That’s… why?” David asked, but didn’t wait for an answer.  “I’m sorry if you lost a friend, Blaine, but you still have us!”

Blaine ignored him, allowing Wes to catch his eye.  His friend was looking at him knowingly, and Blaine could tell that pieces of the puzzle were beginning to click into place.  “Kurt was more than just a friend to you, wasn’t he Blaine?” Wes asked quietly.

Blaine nodded, blinking back tears.  David gasped.

“It… it doesn’t matter now,” Blaine argued, struggling to keep his voice level.  “He’s getting married, and I’ll never see him again.”

Wes looked thoughtful.  “If he’s not married yet, it’s not too late.”

David patted Blaine’s back awkwardly.  “Yeah, man, but… how would you marry a fairy anyways?”

Blaine hung his head.  “He tried to become human for me,” his voice was a near whisper.  “But it didn’t work out.”

“Fairy magic can be pretty powerful,” Wes said reasonably.  “And you never did seem to care much for your life here or your future as king, Blaine, don’t try to pretend otherwise.”

“What are you saying?” Blaine demanded.

Wes smiled at his friend sadly.  “Have you ever considered what life might be like… as a fairy?”

*******

A week later, Blaine was on the open road, loaded down with more money than was probably safe and little else but the pack on his back, which contained a few changes of clothes, his favorite book (it was a story about fairies, with a flower pressed between its pages that Kurt had once given him,) and an old, golden ball.

The journey was easier than he expected.

He walked, and sometimes he hitched a ride.  He spent nights under the stars, or occasionally in inns he found along the way.  He ate what he could find or buy, or sometimes not at all.  Twice he was robbed, never more thankful that he was smart enough to keep his money hidden in several different places, and only once he was recognized.  A small girl, pretty and blonde and blue-eyed, in awe of seeing the prince under his unruly hair and tattered clothes.  But he merely had to catch her eye and draw a finger to his lips—this is a secret—and she giggled, and said nothing.

A month later the scenery began to look less familiar, more alive.  The sky was bluer and the foliage was healthier and the air was sweeter.  At last, Blaine had reached fairy country.

It took him another two weeks of travel to reach Lima, and still another to convince the right people to take him before the King.  But when Blaine finally found himself on his knees in the gardens of the fairy court, head bowed before King Burt where he was seated on his floral throne, it was three days before the Winter Solstice.  Blaine had made it in time.

“Blaine Anderson,” Burt spoke the name with an odd sort of diplomacy.  “I had hoped to never see you again, but I can’t say as I’m surprised that you’re here.  What is it you want of me?”

“I wish to marry your son, your majesty.”

Burt raised a tiny eyebrow, but otherwise his expression remained blank.  “Impossible.  My son is promised in marriage to Prince Karofsky, and you are a human.”

“With all due respect, your majesty, your son does not love this Prince.  He loves me.”

At those words, Burt’s face softened a little, but his voice remained resolute.  “Be that as it may, my second point still stands.  A human cannot be with a fairy.  It is not possible; it is not done.”

Blaine summoned every bit of confidence within him and looked up, meeting Burt’s eyes.  “Then turn me into a fairy.”

*******

The stone beneath him was hard and rough, and Blaine was already a little sore from sitting there for hours.  He peered down into the water, studying his own reflection with scrutiny.  He hoped that Kurt would still like what he saw.  It hadn’t really been much longer since Blaine had last seen him than it was any other year, he knew this.  And yet, the anxiety and eagerness that was plaguing him had reached an entirely new level given all that had transpired in the past months.

He couldn’t hear Kurt approach the fountain—fairies flew silently—but he was immediately aware of the other boy’s presence.  The very air around him hummed with it, as if the forest itself could sense the arrival of the prince.  Or maybe the sixth sense belonged only to Blaine’s heart.

Blaine didn’t turn around, though, until he heard the soft gasp of his name.  He stood slowly and moved to face Kurt.  He tried to stand straight and tall, but was sure his posture would betray his insecurity.

“Kurt,” he breathed out, taking in the sight of the beautiful fairy hovering a few feet in front of him.  Kurt was indeed restored to his former self, his wings glimmering behind him in the afternoon sunlight.  He was the most majestic thing Blaine had ever seen.  Kurt looked like home.

“Blaine, you’re… but how?  Why?”

“You of all people shouldn’t have to ask me why, Kurt.  You should know I’d crawl to the depths of the earth and offer up my very soul if it meant that I could spend my life… or even a second of it… with you.”

He waited nervously for a response, but it seemed that Kurt was frozen there, staring at him and not speaking.  Blaine closed his eyes, not wanting to see the disappointment when it finally registered on Kurt’s face.

Mere seconds had passed of darkness before something was flying at him, nearly knocking him off his feet.  He opened his eyes to see Kurt’s smiling face and wrapped his arms securely around his waist, loving that they were the same size now (and, in actuality, it appeared that Kurt was marginally taller.)

“When my father told me that I no longer had to marry Karofsky, that he’d found someone new for me… well, I thought it was too good to be true and still not good enough.  But Blaine, it’s you!  I can’t believe it’s you!”

Kurt was crying, peppering Blaine’s face with tiny, wet kisses until Blaine was crying too, overwhelmed by the perfect feeling of Kurt’s (warm, flawless, fairy-sized) body pressed against his.  It felt so right—as though Kurt was made to fit into his arms—and for the first time Blaine felt right, too.  He kissed Kurt’s mouth and held his hand and fluttered his wings, glittering gold behind him and lifting them up, up off the fountain, until Kurt caught on and he was fluttering, too.

And they flew, together, deep into the forest.  They had friends to find and tell their happy news.  They had a future to plan— a wedding and their first winter together and the rest of their lives. 

But for right now they had each other, and in Blaine’s heart he knew there was nothing he had ever been more eager to explore.