It's approaching sunset when Puck finds Kurt, sitting on a weathered, sand-dusted rock by the water. Puck stands a few feet away and watches the sun sink down into the horizon, almost as if it's falling straight into the ocean itself, and the second the light touches the surface, everything from the sky to the water goes golden, lit by a great yellow flame. Puck sighs. It's so serene here, the beautiful sunset coupled with the sound of the waves rolling gently on to shore, and then out again, just within reach of the rock Kurt is on. Puck can understand the appeal. He can understand Kurt's need to come here. It's the perfect escape, especially considering what Kurt's life is like – the constant bullying at school, judgmental teachers who don't give a shit, his father's health constantly an issue. There's none of that here. No locker checks, no slurs, no Slushies in the face. Just the rolling surf and the sun throwing spectacular colors across the sky. Puck can see why Kurt chooses this as he means to unwind.

Or he would, except Kurt isn't looking at the sunset. He's looking down – straight down at his feet. He might even have his eyes closed. Puck shrugs it off and keeps walking. Kurt's always been kind of an oddball. It would be so like him to come to the beach during sunset and keep his eyes closed the whole time.

“Hey! Hummel!” Puck calls out. “I thought I'd find you here.”

Kurt raises his head but he doesn't turn around, his eyes focused on the retreating waves and the wet, glistening sand in its wake.

“You must be the smartest in your class, Puckerman,” Kurt remarks. “I'm always here after school.”

“Yeah, I kind of always wondered why that was. You don't seem like the beach going type to me,” Puck says, but he's only teasing. Kurt's not all that hard to figure out. If Puck didn't have to take care of his daughter every other day after school, then work cleaning pools on the days in between, he might pull up a rock and join him.

But today's Friday. Puck claims Fridays for himself – one night off so he doesn't go mad.

“Really?” Kurt says with a sarcastic chuckle. “And what makes you say that?”

Puck stops beside Kurt and his rock, hands shoved into his jean pockets, the thick, cracked soles of his worn military boots sinking into the sand.

“Well, you're wearing head to toe black in 89 degree heat. Your frickin' leather jacket alone must be raising your internal temperature fifteen degrees. And besides, you're whiter than the driven snow. I'm guessing the sun is not your friend.”

“So, that excludes me from liking the beach?” Kurt still doesn't turn his head, his eyes never leaving the water. Puck follows Kurt's eye line, trying to imagine what Kurt sees when he looks out there.

“Nah, it's alright,” Puck says. “I guess I'm just bummed that we don't hang out as much anymore.”

Kurt shakes his head with another short chuckle. “We see each other plenty.”

“Yeah, at school, but…” Puck pulls his hand from his pocket and runs it over the strip of hair on his head, brushing grains of sand onto his shoulders, “I mean, you don't go out drinking or cruising. You're always out here, looking at the water.” Puck sighs, watching Kurt, completely unmoved, eyes sweeping the swells beyond the breakers. “What do you see when you look out there?”

Kurt shrugs with one shoulder and snorts out a laugh.

“Water, genius. It's the ocean.”

“Alright,” Puck says, reaching up to shove Kurt off his rock. Without even looking, Kurt dodges the blow. “Don't tell me. But when you fall off your rock and drown, don't expect me to give you mouth-to-mouth or nuthin'.”

“I won't,” Kurt says, waving an idle good-bye, sending Puck on his way. Puck backs up, watching Kurt watch the water, thinking about the things they used to do on Friday nights, how they'd meet up with other guys from school and go to the movies, or hit the shop-and-rob for some five-fingered discounts. Their pal Sam Evans and his asinine impersonations turned out to be an effective distraction on the latter account. Maybe it wasn't the most intellectually stimulating way to spend a Friday night, but it was still fun. It's not just that, though. The guys are always up for shooting the shit and acting stupid.

Puck misses Kurt.

When it's pretty obvious that Kurt isn't going to call out for him to wait up, isn't going to jump down off the rock and join him, Puck turns on his heel and heads up the beach to his beat-up old Nova.

Kurt turns his head to the side and watches Puck climb into his car. The engine roars, the transmission ticking when he puts it into gear. Kurt rolls his eyes. If Puck doesn't get that transmission swapped out like he's planning, the engine's going to seize up on him, and the pool-cleaning money he makes isn't enough to replace a whole engine with his baby girl to take care of.

From the base of the rock where Kurt's sitting, where the water level has begun to rise, a voice, weaving between the lapping sounds of waves against rock, says, “Is he gone?”

Kurt looks down and smiles into honey-hazel eyes, strangely enchanting eyes, as alien as they are soulful and kind.

“Yeah, Blaine,” Kurt says, sliding down the rock a bit farther to meet the rising tide and the merman floating on it. “He's gone.”

Tan hands, speckled with patches of iridescent blue scales that flash turquoise in the fading sunlight, claw up the rock, grabbing for an anchor to keep the streamlined body they belong to tethered there.

“You know, you can go with him,” Blaine offers sadly. “You don't have to give up spending time with your friend to stay here with me.” Kurt looks at Blaine – head bowed, chin bobbing below the water when the waves come in - and frowns. This creature, this singularly fantastic boy, with curly raven hair and wider-than-human sun-bright eyes, bronze skin that transforms seamlessly into lapis scales and fins of crimson traveling down his spine, ending in a series of delicate, sheer fans at the end of his strong tail, is like no one Kurt has ever met in his life.

Not because Blaine's a merman (though Blaine doesn't seem to like that term, so Kurt makes sure he doesn't say it out loud), but because he doesn't ask anything of Kurt. He doesn't judge him. He doesn't expect anything from him. Blaine's just happy to be with Kurt, to talk when Kurt feels like talking, or to simply sit together and watch the sun set, the moon rise, and the stars come out.

“Do you want me to go?” Kurt asks quietly. Kurt has a lot of fair-weather friends – has had all through high school – with the exception of Puck, whom he's known since kindergarten. But they've gotten older, and as senior year of high school grows near, they've changed. Their priorities are different now. Puck still enjoys spending his nights driving aimlessly until curfew, getting drunk, getting high, doing nothing at all. Puck probably wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life in their small coastal community, and why not? He's got a kid. He's a partner in his dad's pool cleaning business. His future's set, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not what Kurt wants.

“No,” Blaine says, raising his head and gazing at Kurt through long, dark lashes. “I don't want you to go.”

Kurt sighs, because he knows that Blaine's not only talking about tonight.

Kurt has dreams – big dreams, dreams he didn't think were obtainable, until he met Blaine. Blaine washed up on shore after their last really hellacious storm. It was on an early Sunday morning, when most people are praising in buildings than out under the sun and sky the way Kurt always felt worship should be. He was strolling toward this same rock, on his way back up the beach, when he saw Blaine, wound in ropes of brown kelp and the motley remains of old fishing nets dredged up from the ocean floor. Kurt couldn't believe what he was seeing when he found Blaine, but he knew he had to help him, knew that if Blaine didn't make it back to the ocean, he would die. Kurt cut Blaine free, but he didn't want to risk moving him in case he was injured, so he laid in the sand with him, watching over him, waiting for him to wake.

When Blaine opened his eyes and saw Kurt lying in the wet sand before him, he didn't seem afraid. He looked confused for a moment, but then he smiled, and that smile made Kurt's heart beat in a way it hadn't ever.

If Kurt was being honest with himself, he probably started falling in love with Blaine then, though he has yet to admit it.

He can't say it, because it'll only make matters worse.

Meeting Blaine made Kurt realize that anything was possible. If a miracle like Blaine could exist, then Kurt could accomplish anything. But there's the rub. Fulfilling his dreams might mean losing Blaine, and Kurt isn't sure he's ready to do that.

“Don't worry about Puck,” Kurt says, trying to change the mood of the conversation. “He's being dramatic. I spend loads of time with him.”

“Really?” Blaine asks with an innocent smile.

“Sure,” Kurt answers. “He's just being clingy because his girlfriend dumped him.”

Blaine nods, but his smile dims.

“Still,” he says. “You're here with me every day. You shouldn't…”

“I shouldn't what?” Kurt asks, slightly hurt by Blaine's insistence.

“You shouldn't give up your life for me.”

Kurt breathes in deep and pushes a hand through his hair. The sun is almost gone, and the sky is already turning black. It happened so quickly that Kurt barely even noticed it. He hasn't really seen a single sunset since he's met Blaine. Kurt always has his eyes on Blaine, even if it's in secret. But like that sunset, time is flying by him too fast. Before long, he'll have to leave and go home, and then wait until sunset to see Blaine again. It's not enough. There's not enough time.

“I have one more year of high school to go,” Kurt says, “and then I'll be going to college, probably in New York. Puck and I will always be able to find a way to see each other. But…I don't know how much longer I have to spend with you.”

Kurt has to look away when he says it. It's too horrible to think about, and he thinks about it all the time.

“Yeah,” Blaine says, watching as the tide covers his tail and his body, creeping its way up to his hands. Kurt watches, too – watches Blaine move his tail against the pull of the water, the color of his scales becoming more vibrant with the ocean washing over them. He's seen Blaine swim, seen how powerful he is as he cuts through the waves. Blaine belongs to this ocean. He could never take Blaine out of it, and selfishly, that makes Kurt want to scream.

Because it might be an easier solution to take Blaine out of the ocean than to find a way to get Kurt into it.

“Isn't there something we can do?” Kurt asks, quelling the frustration in his voice so he doesn't sound angry – not at Blaine. “I mean, this can't be the first time someone from your world and someone from mine have met and…”

“Technically, we live on the same world,” Blaine cuts in.

“You know what I mean,” Kurt says. “Isn't there some magic spell, or amulet, or seaweed I can eat that'll make me breathe under water?”

“Magic…seaweed?” Blaine chuckles. Kurt bites his lower lip at the shy slip of a smile tugging the corners of Blaine's mouth.

“Don't laugh,” Kurt says, chuckling himself. “I saw it in a movie once.”

Kurt doesn't mention that it was a kids movie that happened to be on while he was babysitting Puck's daughter, Beth.

Blaine rests his chin on the backs of his hands and looks up at Kurt. “You would want to stay…with me?”

“Yes, I would,” Kurt says, knowing that he means it – that with all the dreams he has, all the things he wants to pursue, he'd seriously consider trading them in for a tail and the chance to stay with Blaine. It might be immature, it might be infatuation, but it comes from his gut, so it must mean something. It's a hollow sentiment though, because in reality, how can he? It's impossible. He could also offer Blaine the moon, could want to give it to him with his whole heart, but that doesn't mean Kurt could actually get it for him. And maybe Blaine knows that. Maybe he understands, because he doesn't say anything else, just rests his head on Kurt's knee and lets Kurt run his fingers through his hair.

“You know we'll figure something out,” Kurt says. “We'll find a way to make this work.”

“Sure,” Blaine says, slowly moving his hand to his face and wiping his cheek with the back of it. “I know we will.”

It's a beautiful lie, one Kurt tries not to think about as he watches the last rays of sunlight swallowed up by the water.