A/N: Obviously my fic is inspired in part by Muchacha10's amazing Klaine artwork. Go take a look at her deviantart gallery and tumblr page. She does beautiful work!
Blaine sat on a smooth rock, balancing his guitar on his thigh, strumming away softly.
Lucky sat at his feet, leash in his mouth, hoping that Blaine would just take him on a walk. But so far Blaine hadn't noticed at all.
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream will never do
I'd still miss you, babe
And I don't want to miss a thing
He sang silently to himself, fingers plucking the strings in perfect time.
Lucky started whining and scratched at Blaine's jeans a bit, finally gaining his attention. He reached down and scratched the dog's ears lovingly.
"I'm sorry, bud. I just – I can't get that song out of my head. I can't get that guy out of my mind. I'm so confused…" He became lost in thought.
Suddenly, Lucky's ears perked up and he put his nose down to the sand, sniffing rapidly. The animal turned around and barked at Blaine as if to tell him to follow.
Blaine grabbed his guitar and walked after his pet…
Kurt blinked quickly, his eyes overwhelmed by the sunlight reflecting off of the sand.
The sand…
He sat up quickly, making himself feel light-headed before he looked down at his brand new legs. He just sat, staring at them for a moment, biting back a huge grin.
He carefully extended one leg and rolled his ankle around while wiggling his toes. This had to be the weirdest thing he'd ever seen, but it just made him want to dance around happily. As he admired his strange new appendages, he noticed Mercedes and Rachel floating in some water nearby.
"Well," said Rachel, still panting from helping Kurt up to the surface, "I hope you're happy, young man!" She jabbed a claw at Kurt's foot. "Just look at you! The prince of the ocean walking around on those…th-those…things!" she shouted, gesturing wildly.
Kurt ignored her and tried to push himself up off of the sand. Whoa, it was hard to balance. He tried moving his leg forward, but was frozen in fear at the unfamiliar movement. It was like his brain couldn't even register it. He'd never had to think about swimming a day in his life and here he stood, wobbling around on a set of legs that he had no idea how to work.
He physically grabbed his leg with his hands and moved it a step forward. He seemed to gain balance after a moment and smiled with his small progress. But before he could try it again, he felt the world pull away from under him.
He went tripping towards the waves and reached out his hands to break his fall as the earth came closer and closer.
He was sent spluttering into the water and tried to breathe before he remembered his lungs weren't capable of breathing underwater anymore. As a result, he got a mouthful of saltwater that stung his throat as he swallowed a bit. He came up from the water gasping and struggling to get back to the beach.
As he lay back down on the smooth sand, he took a deep breath before attempting to get up again. Mercedes was carrying the jeans Sue had gifted Kurt in one of her fins and nudged them towards Kurt. He grabbed the denim with his free hand and sat up once more on the beach.
He was too shaken to try standing again, so he put his legs through the leg holes as he sat on the ground. He lifted the waistband over his hips and buttoned the button.
He couldn't help but admire how his legs looked in the jeans – almost as if they were made for him. He relished the feel of wet denim on his legs.He was wearing jeans for the first time in his life.
"My first human milestone," he thought to himself.
Mercedes and Rachel were still eyeing him warily as he stood up for a second time.
"Look," Rachel started angrily again, "You don't even know how to operate those…legs!" She spat out the last word as if it were a profanity.
She turned to Mercedes. "We should just go straight to King Burt and ask him to use the magic of the trident to turn Kurt back…" she nodded, validating herself as she went on excitedly.
"Yes, then no one else will have to know about this horrible misunderstanding and you could just go back to the kingdom where you belong…" She looked towards Mercedes hopefully.
Kurt opened his mouth to protest.
"Rachel…" he tried to say, but his voice got caught in his throat and instead of a normal word forming, it came out as a breathy high pitched tone.
"How convenient," he remembered, "I can only sing…"
He looked heavenward and dropped his head in his hands. Instead of trying to speak again, he just scooped up Rachel in his hands and glared at her until she shut up.
Mercedes swam back and forth in the calm, shallow water nearby.
"Okay, look," she said after a while, "we're not going to do anything."
Rachel started to argue, but Mercedes just ignored her.
"We can't go to Kurt's dad about this, he'll be so unbelievably angry about it. Then he'll force Kurt to go home and it'll just be a huge mess between them. No, we have to let him live out these five days here. It's the only choice we have," she said directly to Rachel.
"It's better if his dad just thinks he ran away or something…better than telling him that his own son deliberately went to the sea witch and asked for legs." Mercedes narrowed her eyes up at Kurt.
Kurt shot her an annoyed look and tried to speak again.
"I did not go to her, she came to me," he sang sharply.
Well, that would take some getting used to.
It was so strange to want to say something with anger and the words just coming out of his mouth melodically against his will instead; Definitely ineffective for the argument at hand. He decided just not to talk anymore.
He took a wobbly step forward, trying to walk again as he tried to ignore the argument about his future that obviously didn't include his input anymore.
He still had Rachel in his hand and he stuck out his arms as he tried to balance himself. It seemed to work as he took another unsure step forward. He lost his balance a bit and almost fell over once more but he caught himself at the last moment. Maybe he was getting the hang of this after all…
"Could you try to be a little more careful?" Rachel asked, clearly shaken from Kurt's near fall.
He just rolled his eyes at her and placed her on the ground so he could take another step away from the water.
He heard the fluttering of wings overhead and saw a shadow pass over the sun. He looked up quickly and saw Finn flying to where they were.
"Hi, guys!" Finn said happily, completely oblivious to Kurt's transformation. "What's up?"
Rachel raised her eyebrows at him, as if to question his sanity.
Mercedes resorted to strong sarcasm. "Oh nothing, you know. The usual. We're just chillin' here on the beach in broad daylight like we always do."
Finn just nodded as if this made perfect sense in his mind – which it probably did.
"Kurt!" he exclaimed, spotting the jeans he was wearing, "Those jeans look amazing on you."
He waddled up to Kurt's leg and admired the pants up close,
"They look as if they were tailored just for you. I always knew you'd look great in jeans." He nodded his clear approval.
Mercedes shouted from the water, "Are you serious right now, Finn?"
Finn looked at her with a confused expression.
"Yeah, don't you think he looks good?" he asked.
"I think he looks like a human," she hinted unsubtly.
Finn looked at her strangely as if he didn't understand. "Well, duh. He's wearing jeans, Mercedes."
She shook her head in frustration and seemed to give up for the moment.
Rachel took over the situation and spoke to the seagull very slowly. "Finn, Kurt is a human now."
Finn turned back to Kurt and looked him up and down for the first time and his eyes finally widened with recognition.
"Holy smokes!" he shouted. "Kurt, do you know that you have legs?"
Kurt dropped his head into his hands. Was he the only sane one around here? He looked at Finn through his fingers and nodded slowly.
"Wow…" Finn said simply, "Just…wow. What did your old man say?"
Mercedes answered for Kurt.
"His dad doesn't even know. Could you imagine what he'd say? He'd probably kill Kurt himself or strip Kurt of his title or something." She splashed around, fidgeting nervously just thinking of it.
"Well," Finn said, "You look great, kid. If that prince guy's around here somewhere, you'll knock him dead."
Kurt flushed a bit thinking about Blaine and felt his stomach twist. This was, after all, all for him.
He had a brief flash of panic – what if Blaine didn't like him? What if he didn't even recognize him? Oh this was all such a stupid idea in the first place! What was he thinking? He probably didn't stand a chance.
Before he could second guess himself further, he heard barking nearby and heading in his direction. Finn flew to a nearby rock and Rachel scuttled back into the waters were Mercedes had ducked down, hiding herself in the water.
Kurt turned in the direction of the barking, but before he could regain his bearings, a huge dog with golden fur was bounding up to him and jumping on him excitedly.
Kurt let out a yelp as he went toppling over from the weight of the animal. He groaned as his head hit the wet sand, but the dog didn't seem to notice. The animal clambered over Kurt and started licking his face eagerly. Kurt laughed at how it felt and tried to push the dog off of him, but he was too weak.
"Lucky!" a strong voice called out worriedly.
Blaine came rushing up and grabbed the dog by the collar, pulling him off of Kurt, leash in hand.
"I'm so sorry," Blaine apologized, attaching the leash to Lucky once more. "I was walking him and he just started running…the leash came undone and…" he trailed off as he looked down at Kurt's face.
He extended a hand to the fallen boy which Kurt slowly accepted. He allowed himself to be hoisted up onto his feet as Blaine kept staring at his face, comprehension slowly dawning on him.
"Are y-you…?" Blaine stammered, "I mean…have we…met?"
Kurt nodded enthusiastically. He wanted to say something, anything really, but he knew nothing would come out. A huge smile crossed Blaine's face.
"I knew it! I knew you'd be here! You…you saved my life, didn't you?" He sighed in relief when he realized he hadn't been crazy.
Kurt nodded again, wishing he could contribute more to the conversation, but he was too afraid of what might escape his lips. Blaine tightened the grip on Kurt's hand excitedly,
"Well, tell me, what's your name?" he asked quickly before backtracking slightly. "I mean, so I can thank you properly" he chuckled softly.
Kurt touched his throat as if to say it was bothering him. Blaine's eyes filled with concern.
"Can't you talk?" he asked.
Kurt shook his head, "I can only sing," he admitted in a high falsetto.
Blaine's eyes widened with disbelief.
"Whoa, that's…that's something" he said. But it seemed as if he actually believed him; there wasn't a hint of skepticism in his eyes. "So where did you come from then?"
Kurt tried to think of how to mime that he was lost, but Lucky was sniffing his legs from behind and nudged him forward. He was already weak in the knees from Blaine touching his hand, so it only took that small nudge to send him tumbling forward into Blaine's arms.
"Whoa, whoa," Blaine said, catching him easily and gazing down into his eyes. "You must've really been through a bad wreck," he said, eyeing Kurt's lack of clothes. "Come on, you can come with me."
He tried to stand Kurt up on his own and stepped away from him, expecting to him to follow. But Kurt just swayed on the spot for a moment before tripping over his own feet again. Blaine caught him again and laughed a bit.
"You really need my help, don't you?" he asked. "Alright then." He grabbed Kurt's arm and draping it across his own shoulder, supporting him effortlessly.
Rachel and Mercedes watched from the water, mouths open with shock.
"I can't believe this is actually working," Rachel spluttered in disbelief.
Mercedes just watched sadly as Blaine guided Kurt away from the water. She couldn't follow him now if she tried.
Together, Kurt and Blaine slowly began walking away from that stretch of beach and towards that gleaming castle upon the cliff top.
"You can come stay in my castle," Blaine said reassuringly. "I'm kind of a big deal," he joked.
His arm around Kurt's bare shoulders was sending chills down Kurt's spine as he just tried to concentrate on not falling down anymore.
Sue smirked as she watched the scene unfolding on her all-knowing mirror.
"Look, girls," she said to Santana and Brittany. "Our precious prince has just taken the bait." She widened her smile. "He'll be falling in love with Kurt in no time at all…"
