A/N: This was written for the kblreversebang2013, which you can find on tumblr and LJ. There is art for this story, created by certaintendencies, that can be found here: certaintendencies . tumblr post/53284964236/kbl-reversebang-art-ill-post-stor y-links-and. Beta'd by asecondgrace.

Prologue

Once upon a time magic was as common as blue eyes or brown hair. Once upon a time, nobody was surprised by children manipulating the elements. But by the time Burt and Molly Hummel welcomed their son Kurt into the world, magic was rare indeed.

"He's just fine," Molly told her husband, pressing kisses to baby Kurt's head.

"His ears look a little pointy," Burt insisted. "Do you think we need to worry about that magic stuff?"

Molly shook her head. "No history we know about in either of our families. No need to worry until we have a reason to, right?"

Kurt was a happy, playful baby; easy to entertain, a good sleeper. He loved music and dressing up in his mother's clothes, and helping her bake cookies. He loved reading books with his father, and going to work at the family's garage, where he would sit on a tall stool and play with his dad's tools. There were many whispered conversations between Burt and Molly in their darkened bedroom about whether their sweet, gentle boy might grow up to like other boys, but one day just flowed into the next.

Until the day that Molly left three-year-old Kurt out in the yard while she went in to put the wash in the dryer.

When she got back outside, Kurt was still sitting in the middle of the yard, but the grass around him was an unnatural bright and sparkling emerald green.

"What are you doing, Kurt?" she asked, and he laughed as he opened his palm and sent a little ball of light into the air. He poked at it with his finger, and it broke into tiny dots that rained down on him like glitter.

"Pwaying," he said, his eyes bright and excited.

"I see that, lovey. What are you playing with?"

Kurt shrugged his little shoulders. "I fink it's magic. Isn't it pwetty?" He swiped at the dots again, and laughed a full belly laugh that Molly had never heard before.

"Yes, baby. It's very pretty, but I think it's something best to play with in the house, okay?"

"Otay." Kurt stood up and toddled after her, the tiny dots of light swarming around his head like a halo.

The next day, Burt started work on a privacy fence.

Then they sat down and had a talk with Kurt about his magic.

Kurt didn't remember a time when he didn't have his magic. His mom used to say it was because he'd been so young, it had just always been a part of him.

It was so easy, manipulating it. It was like breathing, and that made it so much harder to turn off when he was anywhere in public.

It made it insanely difficult to deal with at school, especially every time Dave Karofsky's hand or shoulder made contact with Kurt's body.

God, it would have been so easy to reach out for the tendrils of electricity in the air and jolt Karofsky with one, but Kurt couldn't do that to his father.

Using magic was banned, now, had been since Kurt was eleven. The only people who knew he had It were he and his dad, and his dad told him every night, I'll always protect you. Kurt wasn't afraid, not as long as he had his dad to keep him safe.

He wasn't afraid until the morning Mr. Schue and Miss Pillsbury pulled him out of class with serious faces and shaking voices.

He'd known immediately that it was bad.

He had to hold his magic back when he asked if his dad was dead; he let his voice squeak and his whole body shake, instead.

"No," Mr. Schue told him, and Kurt felt his knees go weak. "He's in a coma, though. It doesn't –" he broke off, placed a hand on Kurt's shoulder that Kurt wanted to shake off, but he couldn't. "I'm sorry, Kurt. It doesn't look good."

"I have to go be with him." The hallway swam a little in Kurt's vision, and Mr. Schue's hand was still on his shoulder. He could feel his control slipping. He had to get out of there.

"Let me drive you," Schue began, but Kurt tore away from his touch.

"No." Kurt shook his head. "I can drive." He wasn't convinced himself, really, at all, but he had to try. He needed to be there, with his dad. He wasn't going to let him die alone, not the way his mom had in rain and shattered glass and twisted metal on the side of the road.

He needed to say goodbye, this time.

His dad looked small and gray in his hospital bed. The room was crammed full of machines, and Kurt curled himself into a hard, inadequate plastic chair, reached around wires and tubes, and held his dad's hand. He hummed softly, the Beatles songs they'd listened to in the dark weeks after his mom's funeral.

He didn't pray.

He wished his magic could fix his dad's heart and brain. He wished he could direct the light and the energy through muscle and bone and veins and blood, but he couldn't.

He was helpless, and he didn't pray.

Around 2 am, when the halls were shadowed and relatively quiet, Kurt thought he felt his father's hand twitch in his own. Kurt sat up, and started talking. Started begging.

He was still talking, babbling about French class and Glee club and the hollandaise he wanted to try making on Sunday, when his father's hand twitched again and then the monitors started beeping.

The doctors and nurses bustled Kurt into the hall, and he curled into a little ball on the cold tile floor, crying so hard he could barely breath.

He should have told them to stop, to give up trying. His father was gone, he felt it in his bones. His father was gone, and had been gone for far too long when the doctor finally sat next to him on the floor and told Kurt how sorry he was.

Kurt swiped at his cheeks with trembling hands, scattered tears all over his jacket and the knees of his jeans. "Thank you for everything you did," Kurt told the doctor. He was numb, and there were surely decisions to make, but Kurt was seventeen and alone in the world, and with a little less than a year until his eighteenth birthday, there were going to be problems going forward. Kurt heard the nurses murmuring about social services or relatives as they moved slowly up the hall, away from his dad's room. There were no relatives, and there was no way Kurt was going to let social services come for him, test him for magic, send him away.

He knew what he had to do.

Daniella Pruitt from Allen County Social Services left for the Lima Memorial Hospital as soon as she hung up the phone. Middle of the night calls were a rarity; she hadn't had one since leaving Chicago five years ago. She was sure the boy would forgive her, showing up in jeans and a sweatshirt instead of her usual suit.

The floor was quiet when she arrived at the Intensive Care Unit, and the nurse at the desk motioned down to her left in a vague gesture. "He's over there," she said, her eyes never leaving her computer screen. "Outside 305. They took the – the body – a little bit ago."

But when Daniella followed the woman's hand, there was nobody there. "I guess I'll go by and check the house," she said with false cheer. These kinds of situations were so terrible. She figured the boy must have gone home to try to get some sleep. Well. She wasn't going to disturb him in the middle of the night. She'd go by in the morning; everything could hold a couple of hours.

The Hummel house was dark when Daniella rang the doorbell just after 8 am, all the doors were locked and there were no signs of life inside. She tried calling, but the line rang and rang and rang. She tried the boy's cell phone, but all she got was a beep and a stern computerized voice telling her that the number she was trying to reach was no longer in service.

She poked around the front door and finally found a spare key in a decorative stone turtle nestled under a rosebush that was winter-bare. The door creaked open, and even though it had been less than six hours, the house felt abandoned.

Kurt Hummel was gone.

The first person to log on was a twelve year old girl on Martha's Vineyard, up too early on a Saturday for a video-chat with her friend Dimitri in Moscow. Dimitri had finally figured out how to channel electricity without setting his hair on fire, and she couldn't wait to see it. When she opened the forum, there was a new message on the front page: My father is gone, and now I need to go, too. It isn't safe for me anymore. Thank you all for being a part of this community; stay strong and safe and help each other, and keep the site going in my absence. In love and magic, FaerieBoy94.

She didn't realize she was crying until the tears dripped into her mouth. FaerieBoy94 was like a legend. All the kids she chatted with all over the world were in awe of him. She was jealous, really, because his parents let him be himself. He didn't have to hide his magic at home the way she did. If he'd left, run away, whatever, if he'd given up, what did that mean for the rest of them?

All across the country, all over the world, kids were seeing the same message. Texts and emails and chat rooms went crazy.

In Westerville, Ohio, a boy shivered in the cold of his dorm room. The news settled into his stomach like a rock. He tried to summon his magic, tried to form one of the glowing balls of light his friends thought were an awesome party trick, but every attempt turned dark and hard and splintered into millions of black shards. He wasn't sure what to do, now. FaerieBoy94 had been like an unintentional mentor the past year and a half, ever since the magic first surged inside him while he lay bleeding and broken on the cold cement outside of his high school gym. The magic scared him, honestly, because he couldn't control it at all. He felt wild with it, sometimes, but having FaerieBoy94 out there showing him the way, it hadn't been quite so overwhelming.

He rubbed his hands through his hair, stood up, and closed the lid on his laptop. He had Warbler's practice at 10, and he needed to get to breakfast before the dining hall closed.

He clenched his hands around the warmth of the magic trying to slide out of him. He couldn't have that anymore, if it wasn't safe. He needed to close it away just like he closed so much of himself away.

He dressed carefully in his uniform, the very picture of a perfect Dalton gentleman, and stepped out into the world. He could do this.

He could be just Blaine.

In Lima, Ohio, the phone calls started. Daniella Pruitt called William Schuester, who had been listed as a contact for Kurt Hummel. Will Schuester called Carole Hudson, because he knew she had briefly dated Burt Hummel. Carole dropped the phone, which brought her son Finn into the kitchen to find his mother sobbing against the counter. Finn called Rachel Berry, who called Tina Cohen-Chang, who set her spoon carefully into her bowl of wonton soup and looked up at Mike Chang with tears in her eyes. Within the hour, the entirety of the New Directions glee club knew that Kurt Hummel had run away.

Every single one of them knew there was no way to find him unless he wanted to be found.

Part I: Encounters

"Anderson, c'mon! We're gonna be late!" Trent hollered from the end of the hall, and Blaine stuck his head around his open door.

"Almost ready," he yelled back. "I can't find my stupid tie."

"Don't let Wes hear you say that. He's nervous enough already, with the rain and everything. I've got an extra, if you're sure you don't have one."

"No, no," Blaine said, rifling through his dresser one last time. "I'm sure I have – oh!" He emerged into the hall triumphant, his tie clutched in his fist. "I found it."

"Most excellent." Trent grabbed his hand and pulled him down the stairs. "Now come on. I heard the Crawford girls are going to be there to cheer us on," Trent said with a wink and a smile.

Blaine almost started to correct Trent, to remind him that he didn't like girls, but he'd never bothered to come out to any of the other Warblers. Being gay was like his magic, just one more thing to make him weird, separate, different. Most days, it was just easier to get by if he pretended to be exactly like everyone else. He didn't figure that the day of the Regional show choir competition was the day to drop that bomb, anyway, strict anti-bullying policy or not.

It wasn't just raining when Blaine and Trent emerged from the dorm and dashed to the waiting Dalton Activities Van; it was absolutely pouring. Their advisor, Mr. Conrad, was drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Blaine tugged the door closed and dropped into the empty seat next to Wes. Wes just frowned at him.

"You're wet and late," Wes scolded.

"It's raining, and I didn't think you'd want me on time if I forgot my tie." Blaine held up the wad of slippery fabric, which he'd stuffed into the pocket of his blazer.

Wes sighed like Blaine was a disappointment. Blaine tried not to let it bother him. He was used to the same attitude from his father. Instead, he focused on smoothing his tie and settling it around his neck. He knotted it with practiced precision and tightened it snugly against his throat. "Tell me about our competition," he said to Wes. He figured another one of Wes' long-winded commentaries was better than silence; it was going to be a long bus ride either way.

Blaine felt singularly responsible for the Warblers' loss at Regionals. He was an underclassman and the council had trusted him to front the group in competition. Granted, the New Directions had killed it with their original songs, and maybe the Pink medley hadn't been the best choice for an all-boy's choir. Even though everyone was being kind to him, and nobody seemingly blamed Blaine (though god knew he blamed himself enough for all of them), it was still a subdued ride back to school.

They stopped for pizza on the outskirts of Westerville. Blaine tucked himself into a corner and nibbled on his slice of pepperoni pizza, sipped at his root beer, and listened to the jokes and laughter around him.

Even when he was part of the group, he still felt so apart from things.

He was so tired of pretending. Pretending to be straight, pretending to be perfect. Pretending to be normal and not some freak of nature.

Blaine hung back, once everyone was off the bus and standing in a big group in front of the dorm. "C'mon," Trent said with a tug on his sleeve. "David's having a party. It'll be fun."

Blaine shook his head. "I'm not feeling very well," he said. "Too much time on the bus."

Trent nodded. "It's the exhaust fumes. The same thing happens to me on airplanes." He wrinkled his nose and shivered in disgust. "That really sucks. You should lie down."

"I think I'm going to take a walk." Blaine gestured to the paths that wound their way around the school and into the adjacent woods. "It's a decent night after all."

"Still cloudy," Trent said, and peered up at the sky. "Be careful, it might be muddy in places. See you tomorrow, then?"

"Definitely." Blaine watched until Trent had made it inside before he took off, stepping carefully on the slippery brick in his dress shoes.

Blaine knew the paths around the school pretty well. Last year, he'd walked them a lot, especially on the days that the newness of the school and the boys and his unruly magic were too much to handle in the confines of his dorm room. He'd always been able to control the magic better, in the woods, and that made everything else a little easier to deal with, too.

He didn't mean to make the first globe, but the clouds made the woods a little too dark for Blaine to walk with any kind of confidence. The first one was tiny, and he expected it to fizzle out like the ones he's made the last day he'd allowed himself to indulge his magic. But the first one stayed, small and warm in his palm, golden amber in the dark. Blaine held out his other hand and made another, larger one. His heart skipped a beat and he had the sudden thought to see if the globe would float. He lifted his hand to his lips and blew a little puff of air; the globe slid off his palm and settled about three inches in front of him. It moved as he moved, lighting his way through the underbrush.

The further he went, the more peaceful he felt. He didn't notice the first small globe fading away. He didn't hear the thunder though the thick canopy of branches and leaves, and he had no way to see the lightning flashing in the sky. He was wrapped in his own thoughts, didn't feel the rain until it was dripping into his face.

And he certainly didn't hear the crashing and crunching and yelling of mage-hunters chasing him until they were almost on top of him.

He stopped walking and his remaining globe went dark.

Think, he told himself. What was the fastest way out?

He couldn't see anything in the dark. He knew it would be stupid to try and get out, he'd probably only end up getting lost instead. He could climb a tree, or find shelter somewhere on the ground. But he had to come up with a plan and fast, because getting caught was the last thing he needed.

He saw the beam from a flashlight flicker too close for comfort. His brain screamed at him to run, dammit, but he was frozen in place.

He took half a second to breathe, and he lifted his foot to start to run when there was a sudden whisper of leaves and a light crunching noise, and there was a boy standing in front of him.

The boy lifted his finger to Blaine's lips and shook his head. His hand on Blaine's wrist was cool and soft, and his bare chest was almost ghostly in the darkness.

The flashlight beam arced wildly, and the boy's eyes went large. He tugged Blaine's arm and then they were off, darting through the trees and under branches, around bushes and boulders.

Blaine felt slow and clumsy; the boy moved swiftly and silently. Blaine just focused on keeping up.

Blaine didn't realize they had stopped until he was aware of nothing but the sound of his breath, the pounding of his heart, and the fact that he was no longer being soaked by the rain. He blinked his eyes and looked around. He – they – were in a cave, and the boy was backed against one wall, an expression of absolute panic on his face.

"T-thank you," Blaine stammered, shaking from the adrenaline and the cold.

"You're an idiot," the boy growled at him. "Don't you know the hunters like to scout out here? There's a bounty for mages, even if they're only barely-trained at best."

"I-I'm n-not a m-mage." Blaine wrapped his arms around himself in a fairly worthless attempt to warm himself up.

"Right. If you can do this –" the boy held out his palm and formed a perfect, glowing globe – "then you're a mage."

"But that's the thing!" Blaine ran a hand through his dripping hair and heaved a frustrated sigh. "I can't do that. I used to be able to, sometimes, but then I just . . . stopped."

The boy tilted his head and stared at him. "It didn't Iook like you had any trouble with globes out there."

Blaine felt his cheeks get hot. He could see the judgment in the boy's eyes. "They're unpredictable. I don't have anyone to teach me, not since . . . not since he disappeared." He doesn't even know how to being explaining FaerieBoy94.

"He?" the boy asks.

"This boy, on this website. You know, for other kids who can . . . do what we do. He was like a mentor for so many of us, and something happened to him, back in the fall. He just disappeared." Blaine poked at the dirt on the floor of the cave with the toe of his shoe. "I really hope he's okay. He said it wasn't safe for him, but I guess I never really understood what he meant until now. Those men . . ." he let his voice trail off.

"Those men come looking for mages out here. If they'd found you, taken you, you would have been just as disappeared as your website boy, only worse. Do you have any idea what they do, when they catch one of us?"

Blaine gulped. "N-no," he rasped, and then cleared all the fear he could from his voice.

"They take us and shut us up in labs. They try to figure out where the magic comes from, and they see how hard they can push you, to make you lose control over it. That's how they got the laws changed, you know. They did all of that, and then published some sham of a study saying that mages were controlled by their magic, that the magic was wild. Of course it goes wild, when we use it out of fear."

Blaine leaned against the far wall, to give the boy some space. The rocks were cold through his shirt and blazer. "If it's so dangerous, then what are you doing out here?"

Kurt closed his eyes and set his head back carefully against the rocks. He let out a short, bitter laugh. "Ah, the irony. Believe it or not, this is the safest place for me."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You're telling me, what, that you live out here?" His eyes flicked around the interior of the cave, taking in the tarps and the sleeping bags, the lantern and flashlight, the cache of food hanging in a net bag.

Kurt rubbed his thumb over the fabric of his brown pants. He was freezing, but he wasn't going to let this stranger see him vulnerable at all. "It was this or any number of bad alternatives. I'm not eighteen until May." Like that explained everything.

The boy kind of stared at him blankly. "Okay," he said with a shrug.

Where had this boy come from? He was way too accepting of Kurt's explanations.

"I need a name," Kurt blurted out. "I keep calling you the kid or the boy. It's kind of exhausting. I'm Kurt."

"Blaine."

Kurt slid carefully down the wall and winced as the cool dampness from the dirt seeped into his pants. "Blaine. So. What were you doing out in the woods, before the hunters so rudely interrupted you?"

"Walking. Just . . . walking. It was a long day. We had this competition. The Warblers did, I mean. They're my glee club, from Dalton?" Blaine tugged on the hem of his unfortunate polyester blazer. "We lost."

Kurt closed his eyes at the mention of glee club. It had to have been Regionals. He tried to shut out the thoughts that plagued him, the memories of his friends and the home he'd found in that choir room. He tried not to feel guilty about leaving without a word, but the guilt plagued him every day even as he knew that he'd done the best thing for himself.

"Who won?" he asked, cautiously, because he needed to know.

"This group from Lima. New Directions."

"Were they good?"

"Very. They sang original songs. We did a medley of P!nk songs. I think maybe we were a little misguided in our choice."

Kurt tried to hold back his laugh, but he couldn't and instead it came out sounding like he was strangling a pig. "P!nk for an all-boys' choir? Yeah, I'd say it was misguided."

Blaine blinked at him. Kurt's heart sank.

Shit, he thought. He'd given away too much, and now there was no way to go back to being invisible.

Oh, what the hell did it matter. He'd given up any chance at invisibility when he'd jumped out of that tree to Blaine's rescue.

"What do you know about show choir?" Blaine asked.

"I used to sing, in my former life." He shook his head. "It feels like so long ago."

"You were in show choir?"

Kurt wanted to hold the words back, but he couldn't stop them. "Yeah. Yeah, I did."

"Where?"

God, Blaine was nosy. "I can't tell you that. I can't. I need to- to protect myself."

It was the truth, he did need to protect himself, but at what expense? He hadn't had any human contact in six months, and god he was lonely.

"From what?" Blaine asked, sounding cautious like maybe he didn't want to scare Kurt away.

"The more appropriate question would be from who?"

"Okay," Blaine said. "From who?"

Kurt wanted to take Blaine by the hand and walk him back to the forest's edge, where the wildness broke off against the manicured landscape of the Dalton campus, but the storm was still railing and he had no idea where the hunters were, whether they'd gone or were still out there with their tranquilizers and ropes and cages, like mages were feral animals or rabid dogs instead of people.

Kurt wanted to ignore the questions, but his father – jesus fuck, his father – had raised him better than that.

"From the hunters, to start with. From Social Services, from friends and neighbors who wouldn't understand. I mean, it's bad enough that I'm . . . different in other ways. If anybody knew about this –" Kurt touched his finger to one of the patches of moss on the wall of the cave and waited while it lit up brilliant and sparkling green – "it would be a disaster."

"Nobody knows about mine either." Kurt watched while Blaine tried to grow a globe, but it didn't get any bigger than the diameter of a quarter before it went ashy and gray.

"Is that all you can do?" Kurt asked. He didn't mean anything by it, but he could feel Blaine stiffen from across the cave.

"Just because you're some magical know it all with a secret cave doing who knows what in the forest alone doesn't mean you get to judge me. You have no idea what it's like, trying to deal with this on top of . . . of all the shit I've been through. If I hadn't- if I hadn't gone to the damn dance, if those idiots hadn't decided to kick my ass, this never have happened."

Kurt watched Blaine pacing. Blaine's fidgeting was making him nervous, but Kurt couldn't tear his eyes away. The more worked up Blaine got, the more brilliant his magic shimmered. Kurt could see his skin glowing with it, his fingers almost sparking. He had no idea how Blaine managed to keep it contained; when Kurt felt his strengthening like that it was like nothing else mattered but letting the light out.

"Why do you hate it so much?" Kurt needed to know. Blaine seemed burdened by it, while it had never been anything but an amazing gift to Kurt.

"What's the point of having it if I can't do anything with it? I can't control it, I'm not sure I even want to if it will be one more thing about me for people to be afraid of." Blaine threw his hands in the air and Kurt winced. Electricity arced out of Blaine's fingers and crackled in the air, which was already highly electrified from the storm.

Kurt pushed to his feet. "Hey," he said gently and reached a hand out to touch Blaine's shoulder. He wanted to calm Blaine, but the touch only set him off.

"Don't touch me," Blaine shouted, and he wheeled on Kurt, fear and panic clearly visible on his face. "I never asked you to help. You should have just left me out there. Maybe it would have been better, if I'd just been taken. "

"You can't see it," Kurt said, keeping close but not touching Blaine. "You can't see how powerful you are, but I can. Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" Blaine just stared at Kurt. He was all curled in on himself, and Kurt wasn't sure what the best course of action was.

"This." Kurt reached out slowly, carefully, and touched his palm to Blaine's. The threads of electricity sizzled and sparked, made Kurt's hand warm and glowy. "It's inside of you. You're just— I mean, I don't know for sure, but I think maybe you're blocked."

Blaine rolled his eyes. "That's bullshit," he yelled. "You're just as bad as everyone else, trying to make me into something I'm not."

"Why are you so scared of your magic?"

"I'm not scared," Blaine insisted.

"Now who's spouting bullshit? You're terrified of it. Why?"

Blaine shuddered. "You really want to know?"

"Please."

"I can't trust it. It fucking failed me when I needed it the most, so what's the damn point?"

"It must mean something, or else you wouldn't have gone to the website, you wouldn't have taught yourself to make globes."

"It's useless," Blaine shrugged. "It's like my music or . . ." he trailed off, dropped his voice to a whisper. "Or being gay."

Ah. So Kurt's untried and extremely inexpert gaydar hadn't been wrong. He had to re-focus to hear what Blaine was still saying.

"All it does is make me different. It's not going to help me get into college or be successful or popular or – or anything, really."

"It's not useless," Kurt insisted. "Mine has helped me survive out here. It could give you a community, if you let it."

Blaine scoffed. "Sure. That's what I always heard about the gay community, too, but there was nobody around when I needed them."

"How old were you?" Kurt wasn't sure if he was asking about Blaine's coming out or his magic. He figured it didn't really matter.

"Fourteen. I was so stupid, I took a guy to the Sadie Hawkins dance at my old school. I hadn't been out to myself very long. I don't know what I was thinking. We were waiting outside the school for his dad to pick us up, and these football jocks jumped us. They beat the shit out of us, and the more they hurt me, the more I could feel the magic. I felt like I was on fire, but it had nowhere to go. I couldn't do anything. They broke two of my ribs and my wrist, and I needed stitches in my forehead. My friend had a concussion and a broken collar bone. They could have killed us, and I had something that would have made them stop, but I couldn't do anything about it."

Kurt tugged on Blaine's wrist, and gestured for him to sit. Kurt waited while Blaine settled, and then dropped to the dirt next to him. "The magic can be . . . unpredictable, when it starts. It's probably best that you didn't try to do anything; it could have been a disaster."

"Uh huh."

"I'm not lying." Kurt took a deep breath. "I was really little, when mine started. My parents never minded, they let me play with it as much as I wanted at home. First it was just the light. I liked to make it rain like glitter." He sent a globe into the air and poked it, and watched Blaine intently when the warm flakes of it cascaded to the ground. "The electricity came next, and it felt so strange and looked so cool that I couldn't stop touching things. Until the morning I set my bed on fire."

"Oops."

"Yeah, oops. I mean, I was just a little kid and I was just playing. It could have been really bad, if you'd let your magic out. Not just for the other guys. I've heard stories about untrained mages, or mages who aren't allowed to use their magic." He shook his head. "Those situations never end well."

Blaine frowned at him. "Like things are going so well for you. Why are you living out here? And don't give me that line again about it being safe for you."

Kurt wrapped his arms around himself. "My father died, in October. My mother died when I was eight. Nobody else knows I'm a mage. It was bad enough that I was the weird gay kid, you know?" He gave Blaine a wry smile and felt Blaine relax. "So I do get that, I really do. And you're right, this isn't a picnic, not when those assholes are out there hunting us. It's just. This is the best I can do, right now."

"We're both alone," Blaine said.

"I suppose so." Kurt preferred to think of himself as independent; the implication of being alone was more final than he was ready to deal with, yet. God, he missed his father.

In the silence, Kurt listened for the rain and looked for the telltale flicker that lightning made when it filtered through the trees. From what he could see and hear, he suspected the worst of the storm was over. "I can walk you back, if you want."

Blaine looked down, away. "I don't think I can find my way on my own. I was already a little turned around when you found me."

"Okay. Just let me find a sweatshirt. It's really cold tonight."

Blaine blushed bright red. "Oh, man, I'm sorry. I didn't even realize."

"No, it's okay." Kurt turned his back on Blaine and rummaged in one of his plastic trash bags for the black sweatshirt he'd taken from his dad's things the night he'd run away. It was ridiculously large on him, but it was warm and it still smelled like home, and wearing it out at night made him virtually invisible.

"Can I see you again?" Blaine's voice was tentative.

Kurt was caught off guard. He hadn't been expecting that. "I'm not sure that's a good idea," he said.

"Why not?"

"Because we're too dangerous to each other. You're untrained and unreliable, and I'm pretty sure that most of Western Ohio is looking for me. It's better if you pretend you never met me."

"And do what?" Blaine's voice rose in consternation. "Just go back to my dorm and act like I'm the same old normal, boring Blaine that walked in here hours ago?"

"Yes. Please." Kurt wasn't above begging, he just didn't want to.

Blaine put his hands on his hips and frowned at Kurt. "There you go again. That might officially be the stupidest thing you've said tonight. I'm not taking no for an answer."

"Then the next time you try to find me, I'll be gone again." Kurt's heart was pounding in his chest. He couldn't catch his breath. He didn't understand why Blaine wasn't just listening to him.

"What are you so scared of?" Blaine challenged.

"Nothing." Keep saying it until you believe it, Kurt told himself. Don't let him see your weaknesses.

"That's crap and we both know it."

Kurt stalked to the entrance of his cave and stared out at the darkness. "Just let it go. Please."

"No." Blaine moved into the space behind Kurt, close enough for Kurt to feel his presence but not close enough to touch. "You didn't let me get away with that shit, I'm not going to let you either."

"You don't even know me."

"Maybe not. But I want to." Blaine's words were quivery, a little nervous. Kurt could hear how much it cost Blaine to admit it.

"I don't care." Shut your heart down. Don't let him get close. Don't let him see.

"If you didn't care, you would have just left me out there to be taken. Or worse. What the hell is your problem?"

Don't, Kurt's brain screamed. Don't say anything.

But his hands were shaking and he could feel his magic swelling inside of him with every beat of his heart. Blaine felt like a magnet. Kurt wanted to hold onto him for as long as he could, wanted to teach him and watch that amazing power grow.

Don't, his brain warned again, but he felt the words bubbling out of him, the admission that hurt more than anything.

"Everyone I care about leaves me." Kurt breathed the words out in a rush, fast and furious.

"Oh," Blaine sighed, and Kurt's heart opened just a crack.

He turned and stared at Blaine. Blaine blinked at him, took a step forward. Then a second, and a third.

Kurt tried to take a step back, but Blaine caught him.

Blaine caught him, strong and gentle at the same time. Kurt fought the urge to run, felt every grasp of Blaine's fingers on his arm. "Hey," Blaine was saying, soft and soothing, into Kurt's ear. "It's okay. I won't tell anyone you're here. I won't. I'll protect you, I promise."

"That's what my dad said, too, and he died."

Blaine's arms were surprisingly strong around Kurt, holding him up. Kurt resisted for a heartbeat, but god it had been so long since anyone had touched him at all, and he was clinging to Blaine, losing himself in the warmth of Blaine's body. "You're safe," Blaine said. "You're safe." He repeated the words over and over; Kurt almost gave in, almost believed him, almost trusted him, but he couldn't.

He couldn't.

Kurt wanted. He wanted so deeply and so much, but he couldn't give in to it. He couldn't lose anyone else, because he didn't know how he would survive.

In the instant before he pulled away from the unexpected security of Blaine's arms, a mage-globe snaked warm, glittery tendrils over them. Kurt twisted away and stared at the globe, hovering above them in the curve of the cave's roof.

Blaine reached out for him again but Kurt backed away and fumbled with something cool and slippery in his hand.

Blaine's tie, wrinkled and wet from being stuffed into his pocket.

Kurt felt the panic rising inside of himself, mixing with his magic and threatening to explode.

He crept back a little more.

"I can't," he choked out. "I can't."

"Please," Blaine whispered, pleading, reaching for Kurt across the expanse of dirt and dark between them.

Kurt stepped back again, startling when his back hit the rocks. He stared at Blaine's tie in his hand, a piece of a world so far from where Kurt was that he couldn't even imagine it.

He had no idea what he was even doing anymore.

Blaine tugged his bottom lip between his teeth. He could tell Kurt was on the edge of panicking or running, maybe both. He didn't want that to happen; he wanted to hold onto whatever thread of connection was running between them, and he thought maybe the best chance he had was to turn Kurt's attention back to magic.

"Hey," he said, and wrinkled his face up into his best self-effacing grin. "Do you think that was mine or yours?" He nodded up at the shrinking remains of the mage-globe.

Kurt blinked at Blaine. "I told you," he said carefully. "You're incredibly powerful. It's yours."

"How can you be sure?"

"I can't," Kurt replied. "But I think maybe your magic is tied to intense emotions. Fear, guilt." He paused for a moment and followed Blaine's eyes up to the light. "Compassion," he said so softly that Blaine almost didn't hear him.

"So what do we do now?"

"We don't do anything," Kurt said. "You learn how to control your emotions, and then you'll be able to control your magic, too."

"Teach me." Blaine moved slowly, carefully, one step and then another until he was close enough to take his tie out of Kurt's hand. He wadded it up and shoved it back into his pocket. "Please. Don't leave me to evade the hunters alone."

Kurt shook his head sadly. "I can't take the risk."

Blaine ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated groan. "I have just as much to lose as you do. Being a mage isn't exactly on my family's list of approved activities."

Kurt didn't say anything, just frowned at Blaine and turned his head away. Early dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky.

"I need to get back," Blaine finally said, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

"Okay." Kurt pushed off the rocks and moved to the entrance to the cave. "Let's go."

That's it? Blaine wanted to ask. After everything that happened, this is all we get?

He followed Kurt back into the woods, around trees and up and over boulders, both of them silent except for the crunch of their footfalls and the gentle huff of their breathing. When they got to the clearing between the forest's edge and the Dalton soccer field, Blaine kept walking until he felt Kurt's absence. He stopped and looked back, saw Kurt standing in shadows, partially obscured by the trees.

It felt like there was a wall between them, and Blaine didn't know how to breach it. "Give me a chance," he called across the distance, softly.

Kurt closed his eyes. Blaine watched him breathe, watched unidentifiable emotions cross his face. When he opened them, his eyes were dark and clouded. He flicked one finger and a tiny speck of light floated out to Blaine.

Blaine held his hand out, waited for the light to reach him. It was hot against his chilled fingers, and when it dissolved he could hear the whisper of Kurt's voice in the early morning air.

Don't look for me. I'll come for you.

Part II: Lessons

Plop. Plop. Plop. It sounded like something wet was hitting Blaine's window.

He set his Chemistry book and notes aside and crawled down to the foot of his bed, flung his window open against the slight chill of the April night. "Jeez, Jeff, did you get locked out again? I think three times in one week is a new record."

"Are you in the habit of entertaining boys on Friday nights?" a voice called up from the lawn below Blaine's window.

"Kurt?" Blaine stuck his head out and peered through the metal rungs of the fire escape. Kurt was standing in the shadow created by the corner of the building, but Blaine could see he was wearing a reasonable facsimile of a Dalton uniform, only instead of gray pants he was wearing some kind of shorts that looked like they belonged in The Sound of Music. "You look ridiculous."

"I need to be invisible. This was the best I could come up with."

"Then get up here before you get noticed." Blaine nodded to the ladder, and watched while Kurt scampered up, fast and silent.

"All that tree climbing came in handy," he said, barely breathing when he hoisted himself through the window into Blaine's room.

"What were you throwing at my window?" Blaine looked at the glass as he closed it. "It looks like water."

"It is." Kurt stretched his hands apart, and Blaine watched as a bubble formed. It looked like little more than a simple soap bubble, the kind he'd blown from plastic wands as a kid. He reached a cautious finger out and poked at it.

"It feels like a balloon," he stated.

"Exactly," Kurt nodded. "It acts just like a water balloon. Convenient, and a lot less noticeable than globes. I thought, if you're still interested, of course, that we could start with these."

Blaine shrugged. "Whatever. I don't even know if I can do anything with water. It's just always been the light."

"Trust me," Kurt said, transferring the balloon into Blaine's hand. "You can do water. Probably fire, wind, flowers and trees . . . but don't think about those yet. We start small, and we start with things less likely to combust if you get frustrated."

Blaine slid the balloon back and forth from hand to hand. It was warm, pliable. Even though he hadn't made it, it felt familiar.

"Pop it," Kurt ordered. Blaine startled and dropped the balloon, which hit the floor and burst, sending water splashing all over.

"Shit!" Blaine yelled, jumping out of the way of the puddle at his feet.

"Hey, you okay, Blaine?" David pounded on their shared wall.

"Yeah," Blaine called back. "I just dropped my water bottle with the lid off. What a mess, man."

"That sucks. You got towels?"

"Yeah, it's fine." Blaine started heading for his closet to grab a towel, but Kurt was shaking his head.

"You don't need that," he said. "Try to get it back into a balloon."

"What part of I don't know how don't you understand?"

Kurt tipped his gaze up to the ceiling and rolled his eyes. "What part of control your emotions and control your magic don't you understand? Stop freaking out and just try it."

Blaine set his feet and scowled at Kurt. "You're kind of bossy, you know?"

"So my father told me almost every day of my childhood. Focus and just try."

Blaine took a breath and closed his eyes. He thought about the water on the floor, the feeling of the balloon in his hands, rubber and cold and wet. He tried to make things move with his mind, much the same way he tried to make his globes, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes after a long minute and just stared at the floor. "I can't," he insisted.

"Come here." Kurt motioned for Blaine to join him closer to the door, away from all the water. Blaine stepped carefully over to where Kurt was standing. Once he was there, Kurt sunk to the floor and tucked his legs under himself. "Sit."

Blaine sat.

"You're trying too hard. Start small." Kurt set one finger on the tile and Blaine watched as a thin trail of water snaked across the floor to Kurt's hand. "Try one droplet. You can do it."

"Says the boy whose magic is like breathing."

"Stop thinking like that." Kurt nudged Blaine's leg with his knee. "You need to have a little confidence. If you think it won't work, then it won't work."

"I think I can, I think I can," Blaine said, and Kurt laughed.

"Something like that, yes. Now. Enough stalling. Try it."

Blaine sighed in resignation and set his hand on the floor. He focused on the water, thought about how it moved and felt. Come on, he thought. Come on, all I need is one drop.

If he hadn't been watching, he never would have believed it. Instead of a stream of liquid, there was one fat round droplet of water rolling across the floor. When it hit his finger it splashed against his skin and he jumped.

"Good," Kurt praised, a laugh in his voice. "Now a little more."

Kurt sat on Blaine's bed tossing light-beads in an arc between his hands like a Slinky, waiting for Blaine to get back from class. Sneaking in had been risky, but no more so than having Blaine meet him in the woods.

He heard footsteps and voices in the hall, and the scrape of Blaine's key in the lock. Kurt held the light-beads in one cupped palm and waited until Blaine had closed the door against the rest of the world. "I thought you'd never get back," he said softly.

Blaine jumped and spun around, his back against the door. "Shit!" he exclaimed. "Jesus, Kurt. You almost gave me a heart attack. How the hell . . ." he glanced from Kurt to the open window and back to Kurt again. "The window was locked."

"And I have a couple of creative uses for my magic. A locked window is nothing. Here." Kurt flung the light-beads into the air, watched them float across the room. "Catch them."

Blaine bit at his bottom lip, but he stared at the beads until they dropped, one by one, into his open hand.

"Good," Kurt praised him. "Now show me what else you can do."

Blaine let his backpack fall off his shoulder. "I still don't have a lot of control over the globes, but."

"But what?" Kurt asked, curious.

"It was kind of an accident." Blaine looked down at his feet, shuffled them a little, awkward and ashamed. "I was lucky we were in the lab or it could have been like one of those disasters you were talking about."

Kurt's heart sunk. "What happened?"

Blaine knelt down, rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a half-full plastic bottle of water, which he uncapped and set on the corner of his desk. He shrugged out of his blazer and unbuttoned and rolled up the cuffs of his shirt. "I learned, after the first time," he explained, and before Kurt could blink Blaine had flicked his finger along the edge of his desk. When he held it up there was a faint but growing flame at the tip. Blaine walked over to a candle in a glass jar on his dresser, lit it, and then blew against his finger to extinguish the flame. "It just sort of happened."

Kurt swallowed hard. "Fire-starting. I'm impressed. I can't say it's one I have a lot of experience with; I can sort of light a campfire, if raging bonfire is what you're looking for." He told himself not to worry; fire-starting wasn't necessarily dangerous, Blaine appeared to have decent control over it, and he wasn't using it recklessly. "You've been practicing with it."

Blaine nodded. "It's so much easier than the water, or the globes. It's like, it's just right there whenever I want it."

Kurt patted the bed next to him, nodded for Blaine to join him. "How much do you know about mages and magic, really?"

"Not a lot." Blaine sat carefully next to Kurt, close but not too close. "Only . . ."

"What you read on your website, right. Okay. Get comfortable. Today you're getting a history lesson."

"I guess it's a good thing I like history, then."

Kurt had loved the old fairy tales of mages when he was little; he made his parents read them every night. It wasn't until he was older that he'd gone digging, when they did a unit on mythology in his seventh grade English class, because all good myth had some basis in reality (or so his teacher reassured the class on the day they'd picked their research topics). He had been a little surprised at how accurate the tales turned out to be when he compared them to the paltry handful of magical histories he'd been able to get at the library. He told Blaine about the way magic had once been a necessity, a means of survival; most people had been able to control all the elements, but as magic started to die out some people found that they could only manage one element well. "Now it's more complicated than that, because magic is coming back. So there are some people who can do one thing really well, but more often there are people who have only moderate power over three or four elements."

"You said I was really powerful," Blaine said.

"True. You are. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe your power is for fire instead of for the things I've been trying to teach you." Kurt shrugged. "I'm not an expert by any means, I'm just a self-trained orphan who likes to think he knows everything."

"You know a lot." Blaine shifted, stretched out so that his back was against the wall. "I'm really grateful I have you to teach me."

Kurt tried to stand up. He and Blaine had avoided any kind of close contact that didn't have to do with magic, and the way Blaine was laying, relaxed and happy, made Kurt a little uncomfortable.

"No, don't go," Blaine said, his fingers twisted in the hem of Kurt's t-shirt. "Please. Stay. Tell me more."

"The histories?"

"The fairy tales. My parents never read them to me, I want to know what I missed."

Kurt sighed gently. "Okay." He settled on his back, hands clasped on his abdomen, close enough to feel the heat of Blaine's body and the gentle puff of his breath, but most decidedly not close enough to touch. He told every tale he could remember, that night, story after story in the growing darkness of Blaine's room: kings and queens, saviors in the guise of knights, witches with gifts for herbs and weather, girls who could talk to animals and boys who could fly. Some were true, some were incredible flights of fancy, but watching Blaine react to each one with genuine wonder left Kurt smiling.

It was the happiest and the safest Kurt had felt since the night his dad died.

When Blaine woke up the next morning, his head full of tales and fables and more kinds of magic than he could imagine, Kurt was gone.

On the last day of May, Blaine got back from his Latin final to find a folded piece of notebook paper on his pillow.

It was a relatively crude hand-drawn map of the woods, marking the path from the soccer field to . . . someplace, where ever Kurt was.

5 pm, be there. And Fire Boy? Burn this.

Blaine grinned and changed quickly out of his uniform into shorts and a t-shirt. He shoved his feet into his sneakers and tucked the map into his pocket. He grabbed his iPod off his dresser and put in his ear buds without turning on the music; if anyone asked, he was going for a run, and nobody would know any different if he came back later a little disheveled and muddy.

Kurt was where he'd marked on the map, not too far into the woods in an odd grove of trees. There was a small clearing there, but if Blaine hadn't been looking for it he never would have known it was there.

He stepped inside, into the cool damp air and dim light, and held up the map between his right thumb and forefinger. He snapped his left fingers and watched Kurt's face as his forefinger burst into flame. He touched the corner of the map to the flame, held it while it disintegrated into heat and ash, and then called back the burning with nothing but a flick of his hands.

Kurt nodded seriously, but when he looked at Blaine he was grinning full-on. "Very nice. You've been practicing."

"Every day," Blaine said proudly. "It's been hard, with exams, but I've been working hard at it."

"Any progress with anything else?"

Blaine waved his hand and settled, cross-legged, onto the blanket of dried up pine needles on the ground. "Water, a little bit. I've worked that a little harder than the light, mostly because I thought it would be helpful in case the fire ever got out of control."

"Smart."

"Thank you."

God, Blaine hated the formality that still existed between them. He'd thought, after the night that Kurt told him stories until he'd fallen asleep, that maybe things would be easier. But Kurt had disappeared again, and Blaine honestly hadn't expected to see him again before school let out for the summer.

"I didn't think I'd see you again," Blaine said.

"I wasn't sure I was going to let you," Kurt replied, wrapping his arms around himself like he was trying to hold himself together. "I shouldn't have left without saying goodbye, the last time."

"What spooked you?" Because if Blaine had learned anything about Kurt in their too-brief time together, it was that Kurt was definitely spooked by a lot. Or at least, he was afraid of a lot.

"I was happy."

"O-okay." Blaine shook his head in confusion. "You do realize that makes no sense at all, right?"

"I know, but nothing else makes sense either. I mean. It was going to be so easy. Just get through till my birthday and then move on to someplace bigger, like I never existed in Ohio at all. No attachments, no complications, just me."

Blaine shuddered at Kurt's words. "Which am I, an attachment or a complication?"

"Both. You're both. I can't – I can't abandon you when you're half trained."

"So that's all? I'm just . . . your student?"

"No!" Kurt was quick to sit down next to Blaine. "No. You're not just anything, but it's so complicated, and I hadn't planned for this, and now you're going home for the summer and I really might never see you again because . . . because . . ."

Kurt had always been so composed when they'd been together, much more in charge in those hours than Blaine had ever been in his whole life. Blaine knew it was his turn to be that, now, for Kurt. He reached out for Kurt's hand. "Because why?"

"Because I'm trying to survive out here, and I can't do that when I'm tethered to you."

"I'm not—I'm not asking you for that."

"I know." Kurt ran his hand through the pine needles. "I just don't know how to let you go. I keep trying, but I keep coming back." He shook his head. "It's so risky, and I know it could turn out to be a huge mistake, but I can't stop thinking about you, about your sense of humor and your power and . . ."

Blaine stilled Kurt's hand with his own. "I know," he said. "I know. It's – it's the same for me."

It felt like Kurt wanted to lean against him but wouldn't take the step on his own. Blaine shifted a little, opened the curves of his body to Kurt, and he almost sighed with relief when Kurt rested his head against Blaine's shoulder. "Yeah?" Kurt asked, his voice a whisper.

"Yeah." Blaine didn't think before he moved, just turned his head slightly and pressed his lips to Kurt's.

He felt Kurt gasp and tense for half a second before he relaxed into the kiss. Kurt's lips were gentle and hungry, and Blaine wanted to get lost in the two of them. He wanted to hold onto the moment, onto the way it felt to have Kurt in his arms, Kurt's hands warm against the thin fabric of his t-shirt, lips and teeth and tongue and –

— and tears.

Blaine pulled away at the feeling of wet and the taste of salt. "Kurt, what's wrong?"

Kurt dropped his head back against Blaine's shoulder. "The same as when I found you, only now I care too much and I don't know what to do about that."

"I'll be back in the fall," Blaine reassured him, because he didn't know what else to say.

"I might not be."

There it was. Blaine hadn't expected Kurt to wait for him, and he'd never ask; despite the kiss, and the magic, they were still virtual strangers. "What if I told you that I wanted to see you again? It doesn't matter when, or where, I just don't want it to be goodbye forever when we walk out of here."

"I'm not sure I could say goodbye to you; I've had too many of them in my life already."

"So that's a yes?"

The silence stretched between them, heavy and long. Finally Kurt sighed. When he spoke, it wasn't the answer Blaine had been waiting for. Instead, it was a question.

"Make magic with me?"

Part III: The Turning Years

Halloween was rainy, the year Kurt Hummel turned 18. He was silently thankful, because it allowed him to disguise himself easier. At 10 am, he walked into the public library in Westerville and logged onto one of the public computers. A few keystrokes, a password, and he had access to his site again.

On Martha's Vineyard, thirteen year old Hallie Jacobs spent the afternoon after school out in the backyard using her magic to create whirlwinds from the orange and red leaves. She didn't notice her mother watching from the kitchen window with a smile on her face. She didn't hear her cell phone beeping with a text message from Jeremy Nugent in Phoenix, another wind mage, telling her to log onto the MageKids forum, that FaerieBoy94 was back.

In his dorm room at Dalton Academy, Blaine Anderson was getting ready for the Halloween dance with Crawford Country Day. He logged onto the MageKids site more out of habit than anything else, just one of the routine things he did online, along with his email and facebook. He dropped into his chair once the page loaded and his heart stopped for a second before starting up again, thudding hard and leaving him breathless.

It's been almost a year since I had to leave you all. It wasn't safe for me, when I left; I'm still not convinced that it's safe for me now, but I'm eighteen today so I don't have to hide anymore.

I'm FaerieBoy94. I'm Kurt Hummel. I'm a mage, and I live in Ohio.

Tonight I'm going to take a boy to a dance.

Plop. Plop. Plop.

Blaine grinned and ran over to his window, throwing it open. Kurt was standing on the lawn, a mage-balloon cradled in his hands. "Catch!" he called, and lobbed the balloon into the air.

Blaine tracked it with his eyes, waited until it hit the high point in its arc, and flicked his fingers. A round bright ball of fire rose and met the balloon, which burst with an audible pop. Water and flame made sparks, and Blaine looked down, down, down at Kurt's face, relaxed and open and illuminated in the light from their magic.

"You've been practicing," Kurt said, like there'd never been a moment of time between them.

"Every day." Blaine moved aside. "Get up here. We have a dance to get to."

Kurt climbed, quick and silent, and launched himself through the open window. "Patience," Kurt said once he was inside and face-to-face with Blaine. "There's something I want to do, first."

Blaine swallowed and rubbed his palms on his thighs. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Kurt shuffled forward, closed the distance between them, and put one hand on Blaine's cheek. It felt warm, and when Kurt leaned in and kissed him, Blaine could have sworn he felt sparks.

When they broke apart, Blaine tried to step back, but he was trapped, held close against Kurt's body by a snaking mage-vine.

"Mine or yours?" Blaine asked, dropping his forehead against Kurt's shoulder and giggling.

"Ours," Kurt said, and kissed him again.

Once upon a time, when magic was rare and mages were persecuted, two lost boys found each other. They gave each other a home, a safe place to love each other and explore their magic. They raised an ill-equipped and barely-trained army of child-mages, which they called a family, and together the thousands made it safe for mages again.