A/N: Next in the Scion verse. This comes right after 'The Power of Love' where Sebastian is trying to help Kurt deal with his new found connection to his power. Warning for mention of blood (not injuries that bleed, just the presence of blood), minor burns, loose interpretation of religious themes, and sexual thoughts.

Sebastian watched Kurt as he pretended to sleep, but he wasn't fooled. He knew Kurt better than that. He knew all the turns and corners in the labyrinth of Kurt's compassionate heart, his exquisite mind that saw flowers where most people saw desolation and hate, his respect for duty and his unending loyalty – his desire to be a man the way his father was a man, through hard work and dedication to those things that were important not just to himself but to others, too. Kurt was growing into that man more and more every day, and not by baby steps, either; by tremendous leaps and bounds.

Which was why Kurt's behavior confused Sebastian, the fact that Kurt lay so still, so far away from him, barely touching, shrugging off any attempt by Sebastian to hold him. It had been days since their training session; days since Kurt had gained the ability to call upon his powers of protection; powers that Sebastian knew Kurt would rely on one day to save the world. Kurt needed to develop them, strengthen them, refine them, but for now all Kurt wanted to do was curl in on himself and lock himself away. After Kurt had started crying in the parking lot that day, he didn't stop for hours, and when he didn't seem to have any tears left he shut down completely.

This more than anything frightened Sebastian.

He had never seen Kurt brought to his knees by the weight of his responsibilities.

Even on those days when Tellemband would skirt around the issue of what Kurt's life would be like after the supposed War to Save Humanity was over and the battle won (won, of course, because there was no other option), silently but not definitively implying that Kurt might not have a future, Kurt never bent to the pressure or the inevitable.

So why this? Why now?

What changed?

Whatever it was, Kurt wouldn't tell him.

Kurt didn't sleep for days, not really, and exhaustion scraped him thin, physically and emotionally. Determined that Kurt needed to build up the power within him, Sebastian started Kurt on a rigorous training regimen. Kurt didn't want the power to become stronger, but he couldn't deny Sebastian. Kurt obeyed quietly, gritting his teeth and biting his tongue to keep from screaming every time he used his power, or more to the point, let the power use him.

But training till his heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces wasn't the hardest thing he had done since he had his terrible breakthrough. The most painful, gut-wrenching thing he had done was to shut Sebastian out. Assume your life is always in danger…that's what Sebastian had told him. Well, now Sebastian's life was the one in danger, except this time it was in danger from Kurt; Kurt and this Godforsaken power that had latched onto him and wouldn't leave him alone. Now that he had tapped into it, called for it by name and allowed it to do its bidding through him, a tiny pool of it lurked inside him, reluctant to give up its hold on his soul. It had found a place to take root, and those roots grew fast and deep. He had become the vessel the priests taught him about in their many long and monotonous lessons. Kurt knew this power had no intention of letting him go.

Sebastian tossed Kurt headlong into training, trying to improve Kurt's skills, focusing on strength over all, and Kurt was succeeding. It had gotten so that he could pretty much annihilate anything with just a thought, and that scared Kurt. He felt the power taking over, filling every cell in his blood, every fiber of his muscles, every fold in his brain. He had tried to hold the power back by reverting to thoughts of his parents, the happy and the bittersweet, in hopes of toning down the unrelenting force within him, but that no longer worked. It knew where his true strength lie hidden, and more and more it fed on it. His thoughts of Sebastian were the only fuel this beast would accept. After he had used every memory he had of Sebastian, from the first moment they met, every time they'd fallen asleep in each other's arms, and every second in between, he started tapping into his fantasies, fantasies of sweet kisses they had yet to share, light touches, softly spoken words.

By the time he had raped every beautiful, intimate thought he had ever had of them together to feed this power, Kurt felt completely and thoroughly violated. But that wasn't enough. The power needed to be fed, even when he wasn't using it. He dreamt of Sebastian more and more – vivid dreams of them together; holding each other, lips pressed against skin, mouths exploring…

Some nights he woke up sweating, shuddering, cumming, his skin glowing, radiant blue heat filling the room, washing everything with its light.

It frightened him to think what might happen if the power got away from him.

What if he hurt Sebastian in his sleep, completely unaware of what he was doing?

What if he killed Sebastian?

So Kurt stayed awake all through the night, counting off the hours as they ticked slowly by, and much to his dismay he knew that Sebastian stayed awake with him.

Eventually lack of sleep wore away at them both, stealing their patience, their humor, their sanity, until the demon of their conjoined stubbornness almost did them in.

It was a month into training, after the hundredth carcass had been destroyed, that Kurt finally snapped.

"I…I can't do this anymore," he whimpered, his whole body shaking, awash with anger, confusion, and shame. He turned away from the carnage and stormed away, slipping in the oily red wetness covering the once black asphalt, his legs carrying him weakly back to the truck.

Sebastian's eyes followed him, befuddled by his reaction when he was doing so well. A long line of blood dripping down Kurt's left elbow caught Sebastian's attention and he raced after Kurt, almost skidding on a pool of blood himself.

"Kurt! Kurt!" Sebastian called after him. "You're cut! You're bleeding!"

"No, I'm not," Kurt threw over his shoulder with obvious aggravation. "It's pig's blood! Everything's covered in pig's blood! I feel like Carrie!"

"Kurt!" Sebastian reached out a hand and grabbed Kurt's upper arm, the skin still hot from the enigmatic blue flame. "Kurt, talk to me." He turned Kurt to face him, the flicker of heat still lurking behind the pupils of Kurt's eyes. Kurt's face twisted at Sebastian's touch, but he didn't try to pull free. He stared down at the arm that held him instead of looking into the young priest's eyes. "Kurt, I'm not permitted to lie to the Scion," Sebastian said, praying that Kurt would look up at him again. "It is considered a sin. But I am your priest, and you must confess to me as well." Sebastian sighed, a heavy sound carrying a weight Kurt often forgot he bore. "How can I help you if you don't confide in me?"

The anger in Kurt's body made way to guilt and he felt himself break apart, as if the anger was the only thing left keeping him together.

"I hate this," he ground out between clenched teeth, a low hiss that was so far from being actual words that if Sebastian didn't know Kurt better he probably wouldn't have understood.

"What?" Sebastian asked. "What do you hate?"

"I hate this power," Kurt muttered. "I hate what it's doing to me, what I've become. I hate that it's taking over and I can't seem to control it." Kurt didn't want to continue but he felt compelled at this point to reveal everything to Sebastian. "It's taken the best parts of me, and I can't run away from it."

Sebastian shook his head, reaching out his other hand to take hold of Kurt's arm.

"I don't understand, Kurt," Sebastian said. "I don't know much about this power either. I mean, I've read about it and the priests told us about it. I know it might be scary, but to a point, it's meant to be. It comes from a source that's as wrathful as it is loving, but how can it take the best parts of you?"

Kurt didn't want to tell him but Sebastian was right. Sebastian was his priest, and as much as Sebastian bent to the Scion, the Scion needed his protector, his priest, to keep him on the right path, and to keep the demons at bay, even the ones that lived inside of him.

Kurt licked his lips but there was no moisture left in his mouth, every bit of it stolen by the confession he had yet to make.

"My center…" Kurt couldn't look at Sebastian while he spoke and he cursed himself for his lack of courage. "My center, where all of this comes from…" Kurt's eyes scanned the parking lot and the morbid necropsy that surrounded them, "is my feelings…for you."

Sebastian stepped back, but not far enough to take his hands off of Kurt. This was the first time Kurt allowed Sebastian to touch him in weeks, and there wasn't any reason in heaven or on earth that he intended to let Kurt go.

"What feelings?" Sebastian asked, but it sounded more like a plea.

Kurt fixed his eyes back on the hands that held his arms. He sucked in a long breath, the glow beneath his skin preparing to spring back to life.

"That I love you," Kurt whispered, the sound traveling only far enough past Kurt's lips to strike right at the core of Sebastian's heart without a single syllable going astray. "That I'm in love with you."

Sebastian wanted to laugh. He wanted to dance. He wanted to run and run and run. Kurt loved him. Kurt was in love with him. He wanted to pick Kurt up in his arms and spin him around. He wanted to kiss him hard on the mouth and steal all of his breath away. Instead he took a deep, steadying breath and a good long look at Kurt, eyes downcast and squeezed shut, his skin still glowing blue. Sebastian could feel it crackle beneath his touch, the heat of it just uncomfortable enough to warn him away but Sebastian didn't let go. For the first time Sebastian saw what Kurt was really hiding. Without having to say anything else Sebastian knew why Kurt was in so much pain. It all made so much sense now, the past few weeks, Kurt's sudden distance, the lack of sleep. In hindsight it was blatantly obvious, and Sebastian felt so foolish for not having seen it before.

"Oh, Kurt…" Sebastian's voice was a gentle breeze to Kurt's ears. "Oh, Kurt. I'm so sorry. I should have…"

"No," Kurt said, smiling for the first time in what seemed like forever. "You were just doing your job. I should have been better at doing mine."

Kurt thought that would be the end of it - revealing his feelings, telling Sebastian the truth; he thought for sure that was the first step on the road to solving his problem. He had hoped that maybe somewhere in Sebastian's collection of tomes and scrolls given to him by Tellemband would be some insight on how to control the power now that he knew what the source of it was, or at the very least how to curb his desires.

But there was nothing. Sebastian looked and looked, re-reading every journal, every book, translating ruins and glyphs over and over some nights. They still didn't touch, and since they couldn't touch, Sebastian refused to sleep until he came up with an answer. After the local police crime scene team stumbled upon their 'training grounds', Sebastian decided this was as good a time as any to relocate their operation and maybe, just maybe, a fresh start would give them some much needed perspective.

Sebastian moved them into a hotel that was more like a seedy, low budget apartment complex where rooms were rented by the week. At least it had a kitchen. Kurt loved to cook, and Sebastian needed to remind Kurt of all those things that he loved. They were on the fourth floor, next to a lonely old woman whose front patio was filled with scraggily brown plants, most of them months past dead, which she fawned over, tending them with all the confidence in the world that they would soon bloom again.

"Look at what Mrs. Clawson from next door gave us." Sebastian grinned, holding out a dusty black pot with a single thorny branch sticking out, leaning to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Kurt glanced up at it with the tiniest flick of his glowing blue eyes and scoffed.

"Why bother?" Kurt's uncharacteristically sardonic tone made Sebastian flinch. "Why does she fuss over those poor dead things? Such a waste of time."

Sebastian put the plant down gently on the kitchen table and looked at Kurt, the subtle glow now ever-present, lighting the dark room he sat in, sulking on the sofa with wide, unblinking eyes, like a child of light hiding in a cave and surrendering to a life in the dark.

Sebastian was losing him.

Enough was enough.

"That's it, Kurt," Sebastian said, bounding to the couch in three steps, "we're getting out of here."

Kurt didn't resist when Sebastian gathered his body up into his arms, lighter than Sebastian ever remembered him being. He covered Kurt in a blanket and sprinted down four flights of sketchy stairs to their truck parked below. Sebastian wasn't sure where he was going but he turned their fate over to the spirits that governed their lives, guided their path. Those phantom caretakers took the wheel from Sebastian's hands and without knowing the where, they ended up exactly where they needed to be – an abandoned department of transportation depot on the far side of town, not much more than a vacant black lot hiding behind what remained of a cement building, used to store old drums full of water for use during the odd natural disaster.

Sebastian parked in an area where the building completely blocked the view of their vehicle from the street, though the area seemed fairly deserted. Kurt watched Sebastian with vague curiosity as the priest lined the barrels of water, fifteen in all, in a single file line horizontally in front of them, about fifty yards away.

"Okay, Scion," Sebastian muttered when he was done, opening Kurt's truck door and pulling him from his seat, "we started this together, and now we're going to finish this together." He half-walked, half-dragged Kurt's body a distance from the truck in full view of all fifteen drums. "You have the power inside you, and it's strong. You just need to learn how to control it."

"Sebastian," Kurt mumbled, "I can't…"

"Yes, you can!" Sebastian interrupted harshly. "Damn it, Kurt! You can do this. You have to concentrate."

"Sebastian…"

"No!" Sebastian yelled, turning Kurt's face to meet his eyes. "No! You're giving in, and I'm not going to lose you. Not now. Not to this."

Sebastian propped Kurt up, helping him stand on his wobbly feet. Sebastian stood behind Kurt, preparing to catch him if he should fall. Sebastian fought to calm himself, to steady the shaking in his hands that came with the idea of Kurt slipping farther and farther away from him.

"Now, look at the barrels and listen to the sound of my voice."

Kurt nodded. Sebastian wasn't sure whether or not it was intentional but he would take whatever cooperation he could get. Sebastian leaned close to Kurt's ear and sighed, letting the warmth of his breath bleed out over his neck. That single touch ignited the spark within Kurt completely, and before Sebastian could say or do anything else the first barrel exploded, sending a spray of water all around them. Sebastian swallowed hard, praying for strength, praying for guidance, but not for himself; for his Kurt.

"You can have me, Kurt," Sebastian whispered, trailing a finger down Kurt's shoulder to his elbow, and then further down to his wrist, "anytime you want me, anyway you want me. I am so in love with you, sometimes I can't breathe."

The second barrel exploded like the first, water shooting up like a geyser and landing on the dry cement with a hard splat. Kurt's entire body shuddered.

"W-why are you doing this to me?"

"You need to learn how to cage your power, Kurt," Sebastian murmured against Kurt's skin. "If your love for me is your center, than you need to face it, not run away from it. I can't watch you destroy yourself when I can help you."

Kurt swallowed his desire and his whole throat ached.

Kurt felt Sebastian's breath continue to warm his skin as he waited, waited for Kurt to object, waited for Kurt to pull away.

"I've loved you from the first second I saw you, before I knew what love was, and…and I've dreamt of having you," Sebastian stuttered, tamping down his fear of telling Kurt his deepest secret, the only one he had ever kept from Kurt, "dreamt about having you every single night since I was thirteen years old."

The third barrel didn't just explode, it disintegrated. The water spread over the floor in a puddle where the barrel had been, but the metal was gone. Kurt's skin turned blue; blue and clear as ocean glass, the heat of the fire that encompassed him rolling off his body in waves.

"I dream about being inside you…" Sebastian didn't relent, even as the next two barrels imploded, crumbling at the exact same time like crushed soda cans, thin, frail, collapsing inward, the sound of it punching the air, "dream about your soft skin and your heat, jeez…" Sebastian dropped his head to Kurt's shoulder, touching it briefly and then hovering so as not to get burned. "You must feel amazing."

Tears collected in Kurt's eyes only to evaporate away and never make it down his cheeks, but that didn't mean he wasn't crying; it didn't mean his despair didn't exist, that it wasn't real. He had the same dreams, more so recently than before, and he wondered if maybe this power had punctured a hole into Sebastian's mind and allowed them to share this experience to feed its own greed.

Kurt loved Sebastian – loved him more than duty, more than honor, more than his own life, though he knew that expressing that love would only end in tragedy. What they had, together or apart, was sacred, and he refused to let anything, anything at all, use it for any reason, and definitely not this.

He would not be corrupted. He would not be a pawn.

Kurt Hummel was the Scion, and the power that he wielded belonged in him and him alone. If it was fueled by love then so be it, but he was taking back control.

"I want to kiss every inch of your body, Kurt…"

Kurt let Sebastian's words weave their way into his heart and cast their own magic. He let them blend with his energy and form a thread, something strong, indestructible, something that would last the way their love would last beyond evil and demons and supernatural quests, beyond his own death if that's truly what his future held in store for him.

Another barrel blew, shot straight into the air raining water down on them, missing them by mere inches when it crashed back to the ground. Kurt turned toward Sebastian, turning his back to his targets which seemed clear in his mind regardless, and pressed their foreheads together, Sebastian grimacing against the sting of Kurt's skin burning into his.

"You think that you don't have a future, Kurt," Sebastian said, raising his voice slightly, fighting over the sound of the drums exploding one by one in rapid succession in order to be heard, "but you do. You have a future. A future with me. And I swear that when this is all over I'll make this up to you. Every day that I didn't kiss you, every day that I didn't make love to you. I'll make it all up to you. I promise we'll be together."

The fifteenth barrel blew and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body, his forearms singed by the blue fire.

"I love you, Kurt," Sebastian confessed quietly as his skin burned. "Forever I'll love you, and that's never going to change."

The quiet that followed the destruction of the last drum startled Sebastian. So many explosions, one after another, that they rang in his ears, but now nothing but a faint sizzling sound which he assumed by this time was his own skin.

Everything around him was cool; the air surrounding him comfortable with the chill of a coastal wind blowing through his hair. His burns dissolved, absorbed back into his skin, the scorch marks disappearing as if they had never existed.

Sebastian looked into Kurt's eyes, still alight with a simmering glow, like a dying ember. Kurt's eyes rolled slowly skyward and Sebastian followed his gaze up to where a diamond-shaped piece of metal, torn from one of the barrels, spun above their heads. It whirled left and right, bending and unbending here and there, melting at the rough edges and corners, and then dropping to the ground with a metallic tinkle. It hit the asphalt much more delicately than Sebastian would have thought, and when it touched down, Kurt's legs buckled beneath him and he fell along with it. Sebastian caught him quickly, cradling him to his body, feeling the drumming of his heart beat against his chest.

Sebastian carried Kurt to the truck and helped him carefully into his seat, reclining the back so that Kurt could lie down. He felt like such a bizarre contradiction of success and failure. Kurt looked at peace, breathing deeply and evenly in sleep. He wanted to leave and get Kurt as far away from there as possible, but curiosity nagged at Sebastian, pulling him back to the spot and that piece of melted metal lying on the concrete.

Sebastian crept up to it, measuring his steps in case he needed to bolt back to the truck, unsure as to what the piece of metal was, or what it had turned into. As it came into view, the butter yellow metal from the drum having turning into a burnished gold, Sebastian stopped…and smiled, as a priest proud of his charge; as a man in love, touched by such a token as the heart laying at his feet. Sebastian crouched down and picked it up, feeling the weight of it in his hand and then folding his fingers around it.

It was Kurt's heart, and he made a silent vow to keep it safe.

He drove at full tilt back to the hotel, parked in the same fortunate spot, and carried Kurt up the stairs, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible with a limp human body dangling in his arms. He laid Kurt out on the bed, every muscle in his body relaxed, his face young and innocent looking, and for the thousandth time Sebastian cursed a world that would burden such an amazing man with its sins, and a God that would force so much sacrifice onto one of his most devoted followers.

Sebastian climbed into bed beside Kurt, not sure how he would feel about being held while he slept, but as he was throwing more and more caution to the wind every single day Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's body and buried his face into Kurt's neck.

Hours they slept, or it could have been days, but when Sebastian opened his eyes, light streamed in through the parted curtains, and Kurt was gone.

Sebastian bolted upright in bed, panting heavily, straining to focus in the dim light in search of his charge whom he found, much to his relief, puttering about the kitchen, putting dishes into the sink and a carton of milk back into the refrigerator. Kurt stood straight as he walked, at ease with his body, the telltale blue glow gone. He turned back to Sebastian at the sound of the bed springs squeaking and caught the look of worry in Sebastian's eyes, and Sebastian saw the burn in Kurt's. The fire within them was there but faint, and it had changed. It wasn't foreign and overwhelming, or dark as Kurt often feared. It was Kurt's flame, subtle and warm, entirely under his control.

Kurt walked over to the bed and sat beside his priest, scooting as close to Sebastian as he could. He took Sebastian's hand for the first time in over a month without persuasion or prompting. Kurt smiled and Sebastian knew that whatever answer Kurt had been looking for, he had found it. Kurt turned his eyes, deeply blue and full of all the things he hadn't given a voice to, over to the kitchen counter. Sebastian's eyes followed and landed on a cake – perfectly domed shape, lightly dusted with sugar, and so rich Sebastian conjured the taste of it in his mouth without even taking a bite.

Or maybe that was Kurt sharing the taste of it with him through his thoughts, through this new connection they seemed to have, an unobstructed window into each other's minds. He pictured the two of them lying together in bed and feeding each other with their fingers, laughing and smiling without a single worry in the world instead of the world being their worry.

In the dim light Sebastian saw the familiar bluish glow. It crept over Kurt's skin in a wave from where his hand held Sebastian's, rushing up his arm, through his neck, illuminating every vein and artery as it went, over his cheeks and finally lighting up his eyes. On the counter, a single candle fizzled and then flickered, a small droplet of flame consuming the wick, and nothing more.

No massive explosion. No earth-shattering destruction.

Sebastian's jaw dropped.

"Kurt, you…"

"Wait," Kurt said, his voice soft as the dim light in the room but all encompassing; it spoke to Sebastian's heart and his heart alone. Kurt lifted Sebastian's hand slowly, reverently to his mouth, his eyes of twinkling blue flame still locked onto Sebastian's eyes of green, growing wider as Kurt brought his lips closer to Sebastian's skin.

Kurt's lips brushed Sebastian's hand, feather light and soft. When he pressed a kiss to the back of Sebastian's hand, Sebastian sucked in a sharp breath. Kurt's eyes darted away, but not out of shame or shyness. They directed Sebastian's gaze again to the opposite side of the room where the pathetic little rose bush clung to life. Another ripple of blue light flowed over Kurt's body, chasing itself on the surface of his skin, and before Sebastian's eyes the rose bush straightened, its desiccated brown stems turning plump and green, the drooping buds reforming, transforming from a morbid grey to the blush of pink that nature had originally gifted them.

Sebastian held on tighter to Kurt's hand, the kiss that Kurt placed on the back of it tingling like a strike of electricity.

"How…how did you know you could do that?"

"I actually found out by accident," Kurt said. He looked over to the window and a sweep of his eyes pulled the curtain back, giving Sebastian a clear view of Mrs. Clawson's patio, all of her previously dead plants bursting with life, flowers blooming fuller and larger as Kurt looked at them. The deceptively frail old woman danced among them, giggling with her hands pressed to her mouth and tears in her eyes. "It never dawned on me that I could do something as wonderful as that."

"Kurt…" Sebastian took his hands and kissed them, feeling giddy inside. "I am so proud of you."

Kurt nodded, but in the midst of Sebastian's joy, Kurt looked melancholy. Kurt leaned forward and Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's torso, pulling him back down onto the bed beside him.

"I'm sorry, Sebastian," Kurt said, happy to be back in Sebastian's arms.

Sebastian chuckled.

"The Scion doesn't have to apologize," he muttered, almost as if by rote. Kurt sighed. He looked up into Sebastian's face, his signature half smile twisting the corner of his mouth.

"My name is Kurt Elizabeth Hummel," Kurt said with a hard, determined stare, "and I am apologizing to the man that I love."

Sebastian's half smile turned into a fuller, more genuine one as he pulled Kurt close to his chest.

"Apology accepted, Kurt." Sebastian placed a hidden kiss into the part on Kurt's head. "Just please, don't shut me out again."

Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut tight against the light in the room and the blue glow in Kurt's eyes, and breathed in to catch a whiff of Kurt's scent – his vanilla shampoo and the chocolate from the cake, the candle burning on the kitchen counter, and Kurt, plain old Kurt, who smelled like spring and sunshine to Sebastian and always would.

The only other words he spoke to Kurt he said with his mind and his heart.

Don't shut me out, Kurt. I can't live without you.