Sebastian made short work of the southwest, cutting from New Orleans to Dallas and pausing only briefly there; Kurt suspected Sebastian had the same vague feeling of not belonging in Texas that set him on edge, even through a dream. Kurt spent more than one sunset in the passenger seat of Sebastian's car, talking and singing as the landscape changed and the sky painted its daily spectacle. Sebastian always seemed a little apologetic when that was the case, but Kurt dismissed him every time. It felt just like being on a road trip with his boyfriend should.

Neither of them accused the other of being a dream very often any more. For Kurt, at least, even the thought left a bitter taste in his mouth which was best swept away with kisses.

From the beginning, Kurt had always been able to see an edge of restlessness in Sebastian – it leant a certain sharp unpredictability to his movements, especially in the quiet pauses. But as the highway fell behind them, there came a time where Kurt was sure Sebastian had thrown it out the window somewhere between Miami and Tampa. And when they reached the Grand Canyon, stood out on the edge and Kurt's very soul went still, he could feel Sebastian's do the same. Holding Sebastian's hand, he knew that for that brief moment, neither of them wanted for a single thing.

(Except when he woke up the next morning, for the first time Kurt really wished he had been there to see it in person. Never before had the dream not felt real enough. But he wanted to live that moment of having his breath stolen by the majesty of the canyon in his real body, with another equally real person beside him. And it ached.)

They eventually made it to Las Vegas, and they loitered there – Sebastian found and endless list of fascinating things to draw, and he made sure to use sunset to show off some of the surprising amount of the cultural life in the city. It was only when they were out of the chaos Las Vegas that Kurt realised that, at some point while they were there, Sebastian had picked up that frenetic edge again. He didn't pry as to why, but he only had to glance at the calendar to guess – the days of summer were running out.

Everything changed in Los Angeles.

The first night they were in the city, Sebastian used a masterful combination of time manipulation and world-bending to whip them through most of the key, tokenistic tourist traps in one night. His skills had become so natural that the manipulations were almost seamless – Kurt found it too easy to forget the real world wasn't so malleable.

Kurt knew there was a time when he would have objected to such cursory treatment of so many iconic cinema and television landmarks, and if he had been to LA in real life only a year ago – or maybe even six months ago – he would have dedicated several days to trawling through them, taking so many photos his phone filled up. But now, Sebastian's cursory exploration was more than satisfying. The morning afterward, as Kurt trundled through his daily routine (wake-exercise-eat-work-work-dance-eat-sleep) he found himself dwelling on why that was. Part of it was definitely that now, as a New Yorker, the novelty of being places he saw on television had worn off.

Another part was definitely Sebastian's influence. On the surface, Sebastian still carried some of that Dalton boy snobbery, the tendency to turn up his nose at something so gauche as a street full of sweaty tourists taking banal photos of pavers in the ground or letters on a hill. Kurt could privately admit to himself (but would never admit to Sebastian) that where he once would have found the attitude intolerable, when it was attached to Sebastian's mischievous smirk and lift of an eyebrow, it was kind of adorable.

More than that, though, was the realisation that none of his happiest moments with Sebastian had anything to do with where they were – and in fact, often the presence of a crowd was more of a hindrance. One day, when the dreams stopped and it all faded away, Kurt knew he would be holding onto the gifts of the small moments.

It was therefore no great surprise that the first thing to wear through Kurt's blissful little cocoon wasn't any one big thing, but the tiny little attritions of everything from his real life that he wanted to share with Sebastian and couldn't. He got so frustrated, sometimes, by how hard it was to really explain the little details of his life so Sebastian could experience them too – exactly how obnoxious a new colleague was, the heaven of coffee from the new shop on his street, the sight of a storm rapidly rolling towards his Vogue office window. Sometimes he ended up giving up with a huff. "I'm always intruding into your life," Kurt said to Sebastian, with a tiny, sad note. "I wish I could show you mine."

And then.

They were soaking up the majesty of the view from the Griffith Observatory. Sebastian was in an odd mood that night – it seemed like the restlessness, which rose closer to the surface by the day, had progressed to thinly-veneered agitation. Sebastian held one of Kurt's hands between both of his own, but he could not stop turning and playing with Kurt's fingers over and over as they talked. Kurt's other hand rubbed soothing circles over Sebastian's knee and thigh, but it did little to blunt the edge of how disquieted Sebastian was.

Eventually Sebastian cracked, during a gap in their conversation. "I saw today on Facebook that Blaine has moved in with Dave Karofsky," he started, as if it was just the next line in a conversation he had already been having, instead of a whiplash-inducing topic change. "Which, for starters - super fucking weird. I guess I'm happy for them?"

That line was delivered with Sebastian's trademark casual sarcasm, but after that he stopped, the sarcasm fell away, and he swallowed. Something came across Sebastian's face that Kurt couldn't recognise. "But it made me think about the real you, for the first time in a long time. And wonder how he's doing. I think we were most of the way to being friends when I left for this trip. And I kind of want to go back and finish that – make us friends. But now I'm not so sure we could be, because how on earth could I ever keep straight whether I'd been told something by real-you or dream-you? And how could I stop myself from reaching out for you every time you were near? Real-you would think I need to be committed to a psych ward."

Grief, Kurt realised. That emotion on Sebastian's face was grief.

The biggest part of Kurt's heart hurt in a potent mix of both Sebastian's sadness and his own; but one tiny corner had planted its feet stubbornly into the earth and refused to be pulled along - it was too stuck on the first thing Sebastian had said. And so even while Kurt's hands and words and mouth offered Sebastian soothing reassurances, giving him peace, if only for a night… inside of Kurt, a turbulence built.

When he woke, that tiny corner took even further hold. As he went about his morning routine, it kept prodding at him. Dream-Sebastian's mention of Blaine moving in with David was too specific, too weird, too easily verified, to be something his own mind had made up. He tried to push it down, but the harder he did the more it grew, digging in with a child-like stubbornness and willpower, beating its fists on the surface of his brain and shouting at him for attention.

He ran into a NYADA acquaintance at the gym that afternoon between jobs, one of the original Rachel sycophants – and there was some sort of vengeance masked as pity in that man's eyes as he asked after Blaine. As if their breakup hadn't been the juiciest piece of gossip to rip through the NYADA halls when it had happened towards the end of the school year. As if… As if there was something new to needle at.

By the time Kurt's shift at the diner finished that evening he was absolutely fixated, and felt more than a little unhinged. Even as the surface part of him - the one that always had to look like the consummate adult in any situation - told him this was completely ridiculous, he tried to find Blaine's social media for the first time in months. Unsurprisingly, he was locked out of all of it, but he cursed all the same. And he knew full well that David no longer had any social media.

Kurt tried to regain some calm by reassuring himself that the detail was just another weird piece of delirium that his brain had pulled out to rattle him, no different to dream-Sebastian shooting him out over the edge of the mountainside oh-so-long ago. It didn't work. Like an itch that he couldn't scratch, this one weird detail was now burning –

"Kurt? What is up with you?"

Kurt whipped his head up to find Elliott quirking a kind-but-concerned eyebrow in his direction. For a split second, he had to wrestle an urge to snap at Elliott – and then he stopped and took stock of himself. He was still in his work clothes, his shirt was untucked, and he'd twisted the hem between anxious fingers until it was a crumpled mess. His dinner sat untouched in front of him, and his lip was chewed to the point of being tender. "Um, I don't really know," he admitted, and at least that was the truth. "I… weird dream. It has me rattled, I guess."

Elliott offered a sympathetic hum and then, being ever the fixer, he also offered Kurt some sort of herbal tea to tame bad dreams. Kurt managed to pull himself together long enough to gently tease Elliott for having a natural remedy for every possible problem, and then as soon as he thought he could without it being weird – although he may have failed, based on the way he could still feel Elliott's eyes on his back – he locked himself in his room.

He needed to know. His mind quickly flicked through the catalogue of people who he could ask, and then before thought had formed word, he was hitting the call button on Sam Evans.

"Oh, hey, Kurt!" If Kurt hadn't been so frantic, the happiness in Sam's voice at hearing from Kurt would have probably given him a tiny pang of guilt. "What's happening?"

"Sam, I need you to be my friend and humour me for just a moment. Can you do that? Completely put aside all of your judgements and believe me when I promise you this really has nothing to do with Blaine?"

"Uh, yeah? I guess?" Sam sounded bewildered.

"Good. Tell me, is it true that Blaine has just moved in with David Karofsky?"

"Um, dude, you're really not selling me on the idea of this not have anything to do with Blaine."

"You're just going to have to believe me for one goddamn second, Sam," Kurt retorted. "Please. It really has nothing to do with Blaine. But if this is true, then a whole bunch of other things someone told me must be true. And… I just…"

"Okay, okay," Sam rushed, and Kurt could practically see the way Sam's eyes would be widening with panic, the way they did when someone went all crazy on him - although usually that someone was a girl. "Yeah, it's true. Sorry, Kurt."

"Thank you," Kurt breathed out. And it felt like the last normal breath he would ever take. Because even as he fumbled through a way to end the conversation with Sam and stared down at the phone in his hands so long the screen turned to black, and then as he kept staring until his head throbbed almost as hard as his heart did, he edged closer to detonation. Eventually, he shook himself out of his stupor long enough to open Instagram, and his thumb tapped a rapid path to Sebastian's profile. It was still private, but this time instead of it being a wake-up call that he was being insane, that lock seemed only a minor annoyance, and Kurt hit the "Follow" button without a second thought. Only fifteen minutes later, he was able to see all the posts.

Kurt scrolled, and with every slide of his finger the pressure in his chest expanded, like something was inflating it from the inside out. They were all there. Kurt recognised every drawing, every place. The pressure grew, and grew, and grew -

It exploded. Kurt's mind finally accepted what his heart had been screaming at him for weeks. It was real. And it always had been.

Kurt was so overwhelmed he almost couldn't decide whether or not he wanted to see Sebastian that night – and then even when he did, the irony was that it was almost impossible to fall asleep. Eventually he did, somewhere around 4am. As soon as he dropped into the dream he was searching for Sebastian, and within moments he was intently studying Sebastian's face. A few moments more, and he had his arms around the boy, his face buried in Sebastian's shoulder. Sebastian must have known something was wrong, but he said nothing and buried his face in Kurt's hair in turn.

In that hold, Kurt found clarity. Did he want this? Yes. Absolutely.

Did Sebastian want this? That was harder to answer. Sebastian had come such a long, long way this summer. Even the way he held Kurt now would have been completely unfathomable only a month ago. But… this softness was a choice, and Kurt knew just how hard a choice it had been, even when Sebastian thought it was only in his own head. Could Kurt ask him to make that choice again in real life?

Sebastian pulled away, just a few inches, and tipped Kurt's face up to kiss him so gently Kurt could cry. And he knew he had to try. To be brave, and believe that Sebastian was brave as well.

The 'how' was easy to answer, even if the answer seemed outrageous, given Sebastian was currently on the opposite side of the whole damn country. If Kurt reached out over phone or social media, they would have time to overthink it or make it weird, and it wouldn't give them the chance they deserved. But if he held onto this information any longer than he absolutely had to, it would be a betrayal. So Kurt was going to have to go where Sebastian went… and if that was California, then he was going to California.

With that settled, Kurt allowed himself a moment to just be giddy. He held Sebastian's hand, listened to the story Sebastian had to tell him about his day. Asked him what his plans were for the three weeks left of summer, and listened not just to the answer but the undercurrent of what Sebastian didn't say – how much it bothered Sebastian that he still didn't know what he should be going back to when the summer was over.

It was almost too easy to convince Sebastian to get out of LA and spend some time somewhere less busy for awhile. Kurt genuinely believed it was the right thing for Sebastian – he always seemed to do better in smaller places, especially places where he could keep his body just as busy as his mind. But it also helped Kurt. By the time they woke, both boys had a plan. Sebastian was going to crawl up the California coastline… and Kurt was going to find him.

So, with a very deliberate calm, Kurt began to settle his life into some sort of order that was safe to hit pause on. He gave Isabelle notice he was going to need leave from work. He picked up extra shifts everywhere he could get them. He planted the seed of thought with his friends and his dad that he might go somewhere alone for awhile, to recharge before the school year started.

He kept his nights with Sebastian simple. Oddly enough, it wasn't even hard to keep himself from giving away that he knew something. They talked and laughed their way through the sunsets, taking turns giving a running commentary on the people. Then Sebastian made all the people disappear and they walked, usually hand-in-hand, through the places Sebastian wanted to show him. Or sometimes, they just watched the sun go down in silence, with Kurt's head on Sebastian's shoulder.

Eventually Sebastian arrived in a beachside town near San Francisco with just the right balance between lively and laid-back, so Kurt persuaded Sebastian to stay put for a few days to catch his breath and focus on his drawing. Sebastian agreed with a small kiss to Kurt's jaw.

Within less than a week, Kurt had everything in a sensible position to, completely insensibly, chase a boy across the country. And he did. He booked a flight, then a hire car, then a motel room.

And committed to this wonderfully irrational idea of what his life could be.

The night before Kurt was due to fly out to San Francisco, Sebastian was sitting in the grass on a cliffside, overlooking a beach in Half Moon Bay. It was a hazy sort of evening, the sea spray thick in the air and broad brush-strokes of cloud hanging low in the horizon. The way that the bright gold California sun bounced off it all would have enraptured Kurt, if not for the boy beside him.

Sebastian didn't startle when Kurt sat down on the grass beside him. He barely even turned his gaze toward Kurt, because he didn't need to – his hand reached over to grab Kurt's and pull them closer together through habit and instinct alone. "I hate to admit it, babe," he said wryly, "But I think you were right."

"Well, yes, I always am," Kurt re-joined matter-of-factly, and Sebastian laughed. "What am I most right about today, though?"

"That I'd be better in a small town right now," Sebastian admitted. "I don't know. Small towns used to make my skin crawl. Lima, Ohio? Suffocating. For both of us, I'm sure." Kurt squeezed his fingers in silent agreement. "But there's something about being in a city that makes not knowing where I'm going with my life feel so much more… urgent. Like if you're not moving forward at a hundred miles an hour, you might as well be standing still. Here, though…" he trailed off, and the hand not holding Kurt's gestured expansively at the scene before them.

"I know," Kurt breathed. Then he turned his gaze toward Sebastian, and before he could help himself, he blurted, "I'm so proud of you." Sebastian scoffed and let go of Kurt's hand to shove his shoulder gently. Only moments later, though, that same hand was reeling Kurt in even closer than before, so that most of Kurt's back was pressed to Sebastian's chest, and there was an arm around his waist. "It's true, though," Kurt protested, sinking back into that warm, strong body behind him. "There's no way you would have said any of that two months ago."

"Yeah, well, apparently the only therapy I'll accept is the kind provided by my own mind," Sebastian mumbled sardonically, and tucked his face into Kurt's neck to nuzzle and nip at the exquisitely sensitive skin there. Kurt allowed himself to be distracted for several pleasant minutes.

Eventually, though, the heart-stopping reality of what he was about to do sank in. "Sebastian?" he mumbled against the other boy's lips, and then pulled back to press his forehead against Sebastian's temple, take a deep breath, and remind himself to be brave. "Do you think we could come to this place again tomorrow? But maybe from the beach?"

Sebastian huffed but did not protest. "It's probably a sign of madness that I don't even have the slightest desire to say no," he said dryly.

"Thank you," Kurt whispered in return. He pushed Sebastian into the plush grass, and he prayed for what the next day would bring.

Kurt was at the airport gate, waiting for his flight to San Francisco to board. His left leg jiggled up and down almost incessantly, and he willed it to stop, paranoid about the risk of seeming anxious at the airport. And it wasn't like he could provide any sort of rational answer should some security guard take notice and ask him about his travel plans – what would he say? He was going to hunt down his dream-lover? The hysterical laughter that welled up in his throat threatened to choke him.

He pulled out his phone to trace the map of the drive from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay again. And then a detail finally caught his eye, one that if his brain hadn't been completely overwrought would have never slipped his notice until this moment: there was more than one beach in Half Moon Bay. He spent every last second until he boarded frantically clicking through street views and photos of all the beaches until he felt reasonably certain he knew where he was headed – Manhattan Beach. Kurt choose to read into it as a sign.

The six and a half hours of flight time was almost unbearable, anticipation and anxiety pulling at him in equal measure. He tried valiantly to engross himself in anything that seemed vaguely interesting in the in-flight entertainment or his surroundings, but failed miserably. Eventually he defaulted to endlessly flicking between images in an album he was ashamed to admit he even had on his phone: all the photos from Sebastian's Instagram. But, crazy-stalker-vibes aside, those pictures were something very precious to him. They were proof that, to hell with all the impossibilities and laws of reality, what he was doing had meaning.

The miles and state borders disappeared beneath him, as the plane worked vigilantly in its doomed task to try to outrun the sun. The closer they got to California, the less anxious Kurt felt. A new emotion rose to take its place, something akin to excitement. As Kurt honed in on it, and as he got into his hire car and started to drive, he could finally put name to it – it was homecoming.

In retrospect, Kurt didn't know how he made the unfamiliar drive from San Francisco to Half Moon Bay intact, not when every fibre of his being felt like it was being pulled with undeniable force in a single direction, heedless of what curves there may be in the road. But he did make it, and as he parked his car and started to walk the path to the beach from the carpark, his heart pounded to realise he'd seen that grassy patch on a cliffside before.

The stairs down to the beach from the top of the cliff were uneven and worn, and took every ounce of Kurt's attention to descend lest he break a wrist by the time he reached the bottom. Kurt's feet hit the sand just as the sun began to track its descent. His eyes roamed with a growing sense of panic as he realised just how many people there were on the beach, and how many secluded little alcoves were tucked into the ragged cliff face – if he couldn't find Sebastian here, how would he find him anywhere? He had to choose to turn left or right, and without hesitation he choose right, towards the end of the beach where a castle-like building perched on the headland and twisted the beams of the sunset around itself with splendour. Sebastian wouldn't be able to help himself but to draw it.

Kurt had almost broken into a run as he moved down the beach, checking each crevice in the cliff intently as he moved – but then he stumbled to a stop. Because there Sebastian was, in a weathered t-shirt and cargo shorts, well-worn beach towel under him, sketchpad across his knees. Tears scratched at the back of Kurt's throat to realise Sebastian was turned towards the building on the headland, just like he'd expected.

Kurt's knees almost gave way as he started to walk Sebastian. He didn't call out – couldn't. But nonetheless, well before Sebastian should have been able to see Kurt out of the corner of his eye, Sebastian's head turned towards him just as surely as if Kurt had shouted out. Their eyes met. Sebastian's gaze turned to pure shock. The sketchpad tumbled out of his limp hands into the sand below.

Sebastian half-made to stand up, but collapsed straight back onto the towel before he'd made it even a foot off the ground. By the time Kurt finally reached Sebastian's side, cheeks burning and hands shaking, Sebastian was still gaping at him. "Oh fuck," Sebastian eventually croaked.

"What?" Now Kurt was this close to Sebastian, every conscious thought appeared to have fled.

"Well, you're either a massive stalker, because you found me here when I haven't told anyone where I am… or I've levelled up my crazy from dreaming you to hallucinating you. Either way, I'm in deep shit."

Kurt tilted his head to the side for a moment, contemplating this. In the end, the best response he could come up with was to sit heavily down next to Sebastian and grasp his hand. Sebastian's hand spasmed, and started trembling just as hard as Kurt's. "Or," Kurt countered as he stared determinedly at their interlinked fingers, his voice deceptively bland, "The dreams have always been shared between us. Which doesn't necessarily mean you're not insane. It could just mean we are the same type of insane."

Sebastian laughed, sounding a little squeaky and wet, and Kurt whipped his face up towards the other man to catch a few tears on Sebastian's lash line. Kurt's breath fled, and he suddenly felt like he was drowning; of everything, somehow it was those tears that left him completely reeling. Everything else so far could have just as easily come from one of their dreams. But those tears, they drove home that undeniable, sucker-punch realisation. Oh shit. This is really happening.

"I don't think us having the same type of insanity was ever in any doubt, babe," Sebastian replied, even his voice trembling now, and then he buried his face against the curve of Kurt's neck and shoulder. Hot tears soaked through Kurt's t-shirt. In a mirror of Sebastian's usual move, Kurt brought his spare hand up to cradle Sebastian's head to him. If a few rivulets tracked down Kurt's own cheeks, then there was no one to witness them; he couldn't have said why, only that they felt a lot like relief.

Eventually Sebastian, still clutching at Kurt's hand like a lifeline, lifted his face. "How are you here? Why are you here?" he asked urgently.

"You made that comment about Blaine moving in with David, and I hadn't heard that news from anyone yet. So as soon as I discovered it was true, everything fell into place. And once I knew, I couldn't not come. Sebastian…" It was Kurt's turn to sound a bit desperate. "I think I already knew, weeks before, if not months, but I was just in denial. And I think, on some level, you knew too. Please tell me that you knew."

"I hoped for it so hard that I couldn't tell what was real from what was fantasy anymore," Sebastian admitted, so quietly it could barely be heard over the growling sway of the ocean.

There was only one possible answer to such a declaration. Kurt pressed his lips to Sebastian's, hot and insistent and close. Sebastian's arms lifted to cling to Kurt's shoulders. They kissed until the feeling of falling stopped, until that sense of shattering need calmed, to become the inexorable pull of their lips and tongues between them. And then then they kissed some more until the sun set completely and the only sources of light were the blazing windows from the majestic manor on the cliff, and the moon above.

As they pulled apart, they drank each other without the colours of the sunset-glow for the first time. Kurt's chest thumped with just how much he still adored that face in the moonlight. Sebastian stood, tugging Kurt up with him, but didn't let him get more than a hands-breadth away before he tugged Kurt back in to press them entirely together, body-to-body. The waves crashed in unison with their breaths.

Eventually Sebastian stepped back properly, but he never let go of Kurt's hand. "Come on, babe," he said, and his cocky smile couldn't quite guard the softness of his gaze. "Let's go. I have so much to show you."