Chapter Summary: Kurt uses magic. Blaine talks about Dalton. Also, Kurt and Blaine kiss. A lot.

A/N: This fic is so long, goodness gracious me. This was going to be the start of the next chapter, but I felt like it fit the last chapter more than it does chapter ten. This chapter hopefully answers a few questions about magic, Blaine, and Dalton. The storm is very close to breaking over these boys' heads, so I figured I'd give them a little bit of time to themselves before they had to face it, especially since everything was so intense last chapter. I am unfortunately running on little time right now, but I promise I will attempt to answer all your comments soon. Thank you so much for the detail you all leave in your reviews, they really encourage me to do the best I can with this fic! You are all wonderful, and I love you all. I hope you enjoy this final part of chapter nine!

"Just try it."

Kurt hummed skeptically. Blaine traced his way up his arms, lying lazily on the couch and giving him that doped-up smile he'd been flashing Kurt all day. Kurt's head was stuffy with Blaine's contentment, affection, amazement. It made it hard to focus. Kurt wondered if this was what Blaine felt when he was in the choir room.

"Come on. It doesn't hurt to try!"

Kurt bit his lip. "Okay… but don't make fun of me if this doesn't work."

"It'll work," Blaine assured earnestly.

Kurt took a breath and leaned down, feeling ridiculously stupid. A shiver of anticipation crawled over the flesh of his brain (that was Blaine). They kissed.

Nothing happened.

He pulled away quickly. "See?"

"No, wait," Blaine grabbed his hips. "Come on, Kurt, you're not trying."

Kurt felt a flash of annoyance (that was him). "I am—!"

"You have to really think," Blaine interrupted, rubbing his hip soothingly. "One more time. Please?"

Those wide eyes were going to get Kurt in trouble one day. Kurt rolled his eyes, fighting a smile and pretending reluctance.

"Fine. Once more."

"Really focus," Blaine reminded him. Kurt let out a long sigh and nodded.

He bent down.

"Think of something good," Blaine whispered into his mouth as it moved to capture Blaine's lips a second time. And Kurt tried to push aside the fascinating sensation of Blaine's emotions, the delicious newness of Blaine's mouth… and focused.

For a minute, it was just the soft sucking of lips. And then—

Suddenly Blaine arched up into him, and Kurt felt his own body convulse as something filled him, cascading down his throat and gurgling through his veins like some kind of crackling, molten river of fire, rushing and colliding down his limbs as crashing waves, sparking something hungry in him, and Kurt wrenched away, terrified he had done something wrong, even as a very large section of himself admitted that he'd be happy if he never had to move ever again. He wondered if this was what it was like to be high.

He reached for his breath, feeling like he had just performed in a Cheerios competition.

Blaine stared back at him, and his eyes were a glowing, unending amber. They slowly moved over to the table, and a tickle of laughter echoed around Kurt's head. Kurt traced the gaze with his own, staring at the wobbly-formed cup of coffee resting innocently atop it.

Oh, wow…

Kurt let out a triumphant ha!, watered down by the extra sound of breath. He'd done it!

"Coffee," Blaine stated wryly. "That's what you think of when you think of 'something good'?"

"Shut up," Kurt pushed against his shoulder, and Blaine laughed, clear and wonderful. "What did you think of?"

"You," Blaine said simply. Kurt felt a blush heating his cheeks and didn't know what to say. Blaine squinted at the cup on the table.

"Is that… from the Lima Bean?"

Kurt was sure the blush had spread down his body, now, humiliatingly red and entirely too visible for his liking.

"It reminds me of you," he mumbled. Blaine's head snapped back to look at Kurt, his entire face lighting up.

"Really?" he asked, a grin splitting his cheeks. (elation in his head, that was Blaine) Kurt hit him on the shoulder.

"Don't go fishing, you'll never catch anything," he admonished, smiling. (affection fizzing up behind his nose, that was him) Blaine laughed and held up his hands in surrender. They came to rest easily back on his hips as Kurt settled back onto Blaine's chest, comfortably nosing into his neck.

"Congratulations," Blaine said into his hair. "You are now officially a Magician."

"And here I thought you were just trying to get me to kiss you," Kurt grinned against his throat. "Do I get a magic wand?"

"You get a Blaine. I hope that's not too disappointing."

"I don't know, I think that's bad marketing," Kurt said thoughtfully. "Every other magician on television has one. I kind of feel cheated. I was really excited to handle a big stick."

Blaine snorted. "I'm sorry I kept you so misinformed."

"I would have taken such good care of it."

"I'm sure you would have."

"Polished it every night and everything."

Blaine choked underneath him, and Kurt grinned wickedly as arousal sung faintly in his ears (that was…).

"You think you're so funny," Blaine muttered, a hand reaching up to tug fondly on Kurt's hair. Kurt huffed against Blaine's skin.

"I don't think," he corrected, smoothing out the area Blaine had so nonchalantly ruined (they were going to have to talk about that). "I know."

They sat for awhile in comfortable silence before a thought struck him.

"Hey, if kissing you is what makes me a magician," Kurt started slowly, "how many people did you kiss at Dalton? Have you been hiding secret manwhore tendencies underneath that enigmatically charming exterior?"

Blaine laughed softly. "No, it's not like that. Most of the people at Dalton, they're naturally inclined to…" he trailed off. Kurt gripped the shoulder his hand was resting on in silent support, listening to the dulled disconcertment sounding inside his head (that was definitely—well, the dull part at least was Blaine). The boy beneath him sighed deeply, slipping into the tired tone Kurt had come to recognize as his 'Dalton voice'. "They call it 'talent,'" he explained. "Their brains fire a certain way that… I don't know how to explain it. They could… command me? I think they were calling on the magic to do something, and since the magic is inside of—I mean. The magic is me." Kurt frowned at the belated correction. "I just… did it. But they'd been conditioned through generations and generations to interact with magic, they didn't have to touch me. If they wanted to do something that I couldn't do by myself, and they wanted to do it with magic, then they'd touch me. But no kissing. They'd just grab my hand or my arm and access the magic that way."

"So what you're saying is they could control you," Kurt stated blankly, not liking the sound of that at all. Reassurance caressed his back from Blaine's palms.

"It wasn't too bad. It was mostly just physical stuff, just doing things. Sometimes feelings. But they couldn't tell me what to think."

Kurt's stomach jolted at the phrasing, more than a little nauseous at Blaine's blasé attitude. "Okay," he said, voice a little higher than normal but trying his best to stay calm. He pulled himself closer into Blaine's warmth, wrapping himself around him—stupidly, as if he could protect him from Dalton and those who resided there with only his body (his arms tightened around Blaine anyway). "So, the kissing?" he asked carefully, both needing and dreading the answer. "Where does that come in?"

Blaine was silent for a very long time. Emotions Kurt couldn't translate warred inside his head (definitely mostly Blaine).

Then: "It's a long story."

Kurt tensed. "We have time," he murmured in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

Another pause. Kurt worried what it was about this story that was making Blaine so hesitant. He tried to feel only reassurance and support, to calm Blaine in the same way he always calmed Kurt. It seemed to work; the emotions settled and he felt Blaine relaxing into the couch a little, his grip on Kurt's head and the small of his back no longer tensed.

"There was—this boy," Blaine began. "Andrew. He was like you, in the sense that I was drawn to him and I didn't know why. Not as strongly as I'm drawn to you, but…" he gave a half, sort-of shrug and Kurt felt the muscles moving underneath his arm. "He was one of the first people I'd run into at Dalton, and for the first year I was there, he was one of the only people I knew. Him, David, and Wes. And I… I hated him, but I…" He let out a heavy breath. "He wanted to try things, and I didn't. But he liked getting what he wanted so, of course, he was an asshole about it. And he was really talented—that's what they called him, 'talented'—he didn't even have to concentrate and he could get me to do anything."

"He wanted the kissing," Kurt said. The knowledge was a simmering pit of tar low in his stomach.

"He wanted the kissing. Wes and David kept him away from me, for the most part. At least, during that first year. But I… was very stupid. And very naïve."

Kurt tightened his grip. "What happened?" he asked. "Is he why you ran away?"

Blaine grew rigid underneath him.

Dread. (he didn't know anymore who that was)

"…What is it?" Kurt probed tentatively. Blaine opened his mouth, but closed it shortly after. Then opened his mouth again.

"I don't want you to misunderstand," he started carefully. Kurt tensed. "So please, listen carefully to what I'm about to say. There were people at Dalton who could command magic. I want to be honest with you. No more secrets between us. Nothing happened to make me run away."

Kurt felt like he had just been presented with one of those optical illusion postcards. The—what?

"Okay," he said slowly.

He had always been horrible at those postcards. He could never get his eyes to ignore the details and unfocus enough to see the hidden picture.

"I don't get—"

"Can we try something?" Blaine interrupted. Kurt would have sat up and glared at him for his evasion tactics, but he was a little too comfortable where he was to move.

"Like another kissing thing? I feel like you're inventing excuses for us to make out."

Blaine laughed. "Ah, tragedy! You've found out my dastardly plan," he protested (but Kurt heard his sudden shyness). "Actually," he continued uncertainly, voice suddenly soft, "I wanted to try to rebuild my walls a bit. Not totally, just… I… it's still a little hard to get a grip on things right now. I mean I know what I'm feeling, but I—it'll just be easier to think if I can separate it a bit more. I can never really build them by myself, they always fall apart on me when I try."

"Of course," Kurt said. "Of course! Um… how do we do that?"

Blaine gently maneuvered Kurt's body so that their mouths were matched over each other, quietly caressing his cheeks with his thumbs. Something tender entered his (still amber) eyes, and it stole Kurt's breath.

"Just focus," he said softly. "I'll do the rest."

"Okay," Kurt sighed.

"The last time I did this, it hurt," Blaine warned him. "But I don't want you to stop or freak out, not unless it's hurting you. I'll be fine."

"Okay," he breathed. The phantom shadow of Blaine's lips brushed against his before the real feature replaced it. Kurt braced himself.

It slammed into him like a crashing tidal wave. Everything in him stretched in thirst with a suddenness and intensity that scared him, and he found himself pulling with greedy invisible fingers at the well of fire hiding inside of the boy beneath him—except he didn't have to pull at all, it was rushing into him like some kind of niagara of blazes, igniting inside of him and—that faint feeling of claws raking down his back, that was Blaine, and so was the magic that was pouring inside of him, he knew that, but it felt so different, creating a need inside of him he didn't even know could be made, but it was—he needed it, this feeling, this—

Blaine, Blaine, Blaine. This was about Blaine, not about whatever it was that was happening to him, Blaine. He needed a breath.

It physically hurt to tear himself away. Blaine made a strangled noise as he did so, and Kurt barely stopped himself from whining as he caught sight of the glazed-over, burning amber eyes and flushed cheeks.

"Why did you stop?" Blaine asked, breathless. Kurt shook his head wordlessly, eyes wide, and he looked down to find he had changed Carole's couch into a chez lounge (much more fashionable).

"Couldn't focus," he explained. Blaine glanced down and started cracking up, an uncontrollable giggle that was wilder, rougher than his joy last night. "We should fix the couch," Kurt stated and Blaine nodded, reaching for Kurt and they were kissing again, and that feeling—wildness, heroin, crack cocaine, pleasure,God only knew what it was but Kurt needed it, it filled him, finding holes and crannies inside of him dusty with disuse and neglect and burning through them and the couch, Carole's couch, flowers and triangles, focus, Kurt, focus, focus.

When he pulled away this time, it felt like he was diving underwater, and he found himself leaning back in for oxygen before he was even conscious of having gotten wet.

"Oh," Kurt moaned between kisses, "we should… should stop, we should…"

"Stop," Blaine agreed, nodding, but neither of them did. "Yes…"

His hands gripped Kurt's sleeves, and a tongue pressed into someone's mouth.

Stop.

Kurt bent his knee and it dragged up Blaine's thigh, and Blaine bit into his lip in reply, magic rushing hot down his throat and Kurt realized those fingers, piano hands, were etching designs like they were being puppeted by something else, playing the keys to a song Kurt didn't know, couldn't hear, down his arms, over his shoulders, his neck, his collarbone, his ribs, the small of his back, maybe he was the song maybe Blaine was playing him his spine his hip—

STOP.

His entire body tingling like it was just waking up from having fallen asleep, the body below him writhing, arching up into him like being electrocuted eyes rolling lips glued together tongue and still those hands mapping strange constellations into his veins, sparks shocked into him from rubbing feet against a carpet electricity zapping little gasps into grinding hips and skin heat drugs flushing into his veins—

STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP.

Kurt tugged away, hands turning to fists in curly hair as those fingers kept playing his skin. His forehead rested against Blaine's as he tried to breathe through what he could only describe as a sudden, painful withdrawal. "This is intense," he pushed out through his teeth. Blaine breathed in slowly underneath him, singing worry into his ears (that was Blaine).

"Yeah," he said, the word shaky. "Are you okay?"

"For the most part." His eyes fell shut and he cried out involuntarily as Blaine's fingers passed over the magic embroidered in his arm.

"Sorry," Blaine breathed.

Kurt swallowed, trying to loosen his grip on Blaine's hair. "This isn't you, is it?" he asked softly. Blaine glowing amber eyes told him the answer, even as the boy beneath him shook his head.

"It's always me, even when it feels like it isn't." A creeping alarm (that wasn't coming from Kurt) added to the pounding in his head, a tempo his heart echoed as Blaine slowly stiffened underneath him. "It's not that I don't want this. I'd just like to be in control when it happens."

"Yeah. I get—yes," said Kurt, whose salivary glands seemed to have run out of fluid at the thought of continuing what they'd unknowingly started. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I don't know," Blaine spoke through his teeth. "This has only ever happened with you."

"Maybe if we just go with it, if we…" Kurt's tongue was sandpaper in his mouth. He had no idea what this was supposed to lead to, but he was pretty sure he wasn't ready for it, whatever it was. "This happened yesterday, right? What happened to make it go away?"

Blaine huffed out a harsh breath. "You did," he bit out.

Kurt strangled his grip on his hair and forgot to breathe as fingers dug into the magic in his arm and want tore through his system like a tornado. "Sorry!" he squeaked. "I—"

"Walls," Blaine interrupted, and it sounded so much like a moan Kurt had to close his eyes. "Help me build walls!"

"Okay, right," he panted. "Yes. Walls." And he leaned down and they were kissing again, but this time Kurt was going to focus, damn it, and they were going to build walls and he was not going to think about kissing Blaine senseless or slotting their hips together where they lay so close to each other or pressing down just so…

"Kurt!" came the gasp, half laugh and half something much more searing.

"I'm sorry!" Kurt pulled away. "It's just that we're kissing and… and we're kissing. And…"

"Let's try this another way," Blaine said, placating even as Kurt could feel muscles straining against his own in Blaine's effort to keep them still. Somewhat awkwardly, Blaine maneuvered them both into a sitting position. The kiss must have done something, because it seemed Blaine was able to keep his hands from roaming over Kurt's skin now. Which was an improvement. (…right?) "Take my hands."

Kurt took them. Blaine held tight to point of almost being painful.

"Okay. Now. Listen." He leaned his forehead gently against Kurt's, eyes closed, his every move tight with careful control. Kurt's lids fell shut as Blaine's voice seeped into him. "Picture a forest in your mind. A deep, green forest, with tall, tall trees. Picture yourself walking through it. There's no path for you to follow, but you know exactly where you're going. At the same time, you don't know where you'll end up. The ground is littered with old, dead orange leaves, but the canopies of each tree are verdant, lush." In a distant corner of his mind, Kurt felt his body going slowly slack—but it was secondary to the crunch of leaves under his feet, the smell of oak in the air around him, the feel of bark rough against his hands. "You come across a clearing. In the clearing is a pool of water. Clear, untouched. The water is so still and smooth it looks like glass. If you wanted to, you could look down and see straight through to the bottom of the pool. So you look down." Blaine's voice strained as it echoed around the clearing. Kurt knelt down and looked down into the pool. Oh! "You see me," Blaine's voice confirmed, even as he wasn't speaking, so still underneath the water. "You reach out, but your hands knock against something. It's the water. You can't get past the water. Because it is glass. It's a window, a heavy glass that you can't break." Kurt knew where this was going even before Blaine said it, and he readied himself:

"It's a wall."

Blaine's hands suddenly tightened on his own and magic rushed up his arms and inflated his chest and burned through his body like it was everything he'd ever need for eternity but for a single, brief moment, Kurt was still starkly clear on one image: Blaine and him, a heavy glass wall separating the two of them—

The fire tore out of him as quickly as it had entered, back into Blaine's body as if into a vacuum, and he felt Blaine seize up and heard his sudden gasp as Kurt's eyes snapped open to find himself—

Back in the living room, in the exact same position he had left it. Almost as soon as it happened, it was over, and Blaine went slack against him, leaning heavily against his forehead.

"Did it work?" he asked breathlessly. Blaine nodded, the motion loose and lazy with exhaustion.

"Thank you," he sighed. Kurt tensed as Blaine dragged his head down to rest on his shoulder. He tentatively brought his hands up around Blaine's back. Blaine had always been incredibly physical with him, especially within the last week, but Kurt still sometimes marveled at the fact that a boy was so willingly touching him. It still sometimes felt temporary, like maybe if he did the wrong thing, Blaine would realize he had been hugging Kurt for far too long, and would stop touching him altogether.

But it was silly to worry about that. Because they were kissing practically all the time now, so if Blaine was physically repulsed by him, he probably would have noticed long ago.

A slight frown pinched his forehead as the thought led into another one.

"Hey," he started softly, hesitantly. Then stopped.

"Hmm?" Blaine asked contentedly.

"Are we… are we boyfriends, now?"

A lump of fear lodged itself in Kurt's throat as the words crept out. Blaine stayed silent for a few moments. Kurt was suddenly, harshly aware of the silence in his own head. (Just him, now)

"What else would we be?" Blaine asked carefully.

Kurt let out a relieved smile and he tightened his hold into a proper embrace, leaning back against the couch. Blaine moved with him, more pliant than Kurt had ever seen him be. He settled with a little pleased noise against Kurt's chest, and Kurt felt like someone had filled him up with liquid warmth at the sound. He brought one of his hands up to Blaine's head.

"I don't know," he said ruefully, playing with a curl. "I'm just being ridiculous. You're the Bing Crosby to my Marjorie Reynolds, after all."

"Why do you have to be a girl?" Blaine protested into his chest. "You look more like Fred Astaire. Let's make plans and do some dancing offstage. I think we can use a little implied homoeroticism."

"Oh, I think we're past implied."

Blaine hummed a quiet laugh, the vibrations of it echoing down Kurt's chest.

"Hey, Blaine?" he asked. "Who was the one who helped you build walls the first time?"

He waited, but Blaine didn't answer. Glancing down, he saw Blaine's eyes were shut; felt his breathing slowing, deepening. He was asleep.

Kurt held tighter and closed his eyes, relaxing into the cushions. It had been much too long of a day today, with too many complicated emotions. He already missed the feel of Blaine at the back of his mind; it felt like some integral part of him was missing. Which was silly, because he'd only known Blaine for a month, and he had been entirely himself before they'd met. Or, most of himself, anyway. All. Most? Maybe part of himself, but still he had access to everything should he decide to be all himself later. Or something. Kurt gave up trying to reason out his logic and let himself slip away to join Blaine in sleep. He wasn't making any sense, and anyway, he was starting to get a headache.