#new years is the holiday i get the most emotional on frankly. i’m easily won over by the five (5) songs they play | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

vcg73 · 8 years

Text

Witch!Kurt #22: Operation Bow-Tie

Another ridiculously long installment, and it didn’t seem to want to stop so you’ll probably get another piece fairly soon. :)

I decided to indulge in one of Glee’s favorite tricks and alternate POV between New York and Lima for this one.

~*~*~*~*~

Adam was startled by the suddenness of their departure from the loft, and reappearance in a dimly lit room where he had never been before. The fact of being in a new location did not particularly bother him. Partly because he had expected it, and partly because the room was completely empty but for himself and his companions. The mode of transportation had not bothered him either. He and his siblings had taken dozens of weekend holidays with their dad growing up, and ‘Crawford Air’ rarely involved the use of a plane. His dad usually gave more notice before take-off, however.

He paused, taking stock of his emotions as his therapist had recommended he do when faced with new and potentially frightening situations. Nervousness at being so far from Kurt; a bit wary of the unknown space he found himself in; subtle terror at the idea of seeing his enemy again; excitement at having taken such a bold step forward; gratitude to not be doing so alone. Adam closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose, and out through his mouth. It surprised him as he opened his eyes again, to realize that even though he had surely been woolgathering for several seconds longer than he should, Santana had not released her grip on his arm. Indeed, Brittany had come around to his other side and also laid a reassuring hand on him. And from her arms, Tubbington had reached forth a paw to touch his hand.

“You back with us?” Santana asked, her tone surprisingly calm and nonjudgmental.

Adam’s feeling of gratitude increased as he looked all three in their concerned eyes. “Yes. Thank you. Where are we?” His eyes scanned the room. It was a large open space with three rows of wide steps built into the floor and rising toward a back wall that was illuminated in its upper portion by a row of windows. The light from above offered dim illumination for a dozen or so wooden chairs and a piano. The place also had the peculiar scent of stale cafeteria food and fresh writing supplies that could only indicate, “A school? We’re in a school. Is this your old choir room?”

Brittany smiled at him. “I knew you’d figure it out. Welcome to the home of New Directions!”

“Are you sure this is a good place for us to be?” he asked, glancing at the windowed door with a hint of distrust. “Won’t someone notice they have trespassers?”

“Relax, will you?” Santana said, nevertheless taking a quick peek out into the dark and silent hallway, and around the corner to the tiny office off to the side that was sometimes used by their former glee advisor. “It’s Saturday. Nobody’s going to be here. That’s why I picked it. Well, that, and the fact that after spending so much time in this room, I could center on it even if I was half-drunk and blindfolded. When I go long-distance, it helps to have a familiar location.”

He nodded, relaxing a bit. That made perfect sense. His dad was one of the few witches he had ever known who found distance and unfamiliarity to be no deterrent. “I see. So this is not where we’ll begin our spying mission. Have you any idea where we would find our quarry on a weekend? Is there a plan for how we’ll conduct ourselves once we do, or are we just planning to wing it?”

“Keep your pants on, Junior,” Tubbington scolded, hopping out of Brittany’s arms and transforming. “I know you’re probably in a hurry to get this over with, but first we have some preparations to make. We have to get you all dressed up.”

Adam flushed, realizing that in his deliberate show of enthusiasm for the mission, he had momentarily forgot all about his appearance. He needed to calm down and get his head in this game if he was to be of any use. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to get ahead of myself.”

Apparently not fooled a bit, Brittany squeezed his hand. “It’s okay to be scared, Adam. When somebody hurts you, it’s smart to be scared of them. Fear keeps you sharp, and sharp keeps you alive. And we’ll keep you safe. Otherwise we’ll all need to be scared of Kurt.”

He laughed, allowing a little of his tension to ease. “That goes for the three of you as well. I think my fiancé would be considerably unhappy with me if I were to allow any harm to befall you while you were busy looking after me.”

“So we’ll all be careful,” Tubbington agreed, shooting Santana a narrow-eyed look, “and we won’t antagonize Anderson if we happen to see him. Frankly, I’m more interested in getting a look at the people in this town and finding out how bad he’s got his claws dug in.”

Santana rolled her eyes and flipped her hair back, not bothering to argue. “Fine. You want to gather some intel? I made us an appointment to see Sue.”

Brittany nodded. “Good idea. She has eyes and ears all over town. And she’ll want a report on Kurt’s progress anyway.”

“This is your old cheer coach, yes? Who is this woman, exactly?” Adam asked, puzzled. “I know that Kurt thinks rather highly of her, though he also makes it sound as though she’s a bit mad.”

Lord Tubbington made a sound that was somewhere halfway between a laugh and a hairball hack. “He’s right about that, and more than a bit. Sue Sylvester is a complete loon, but she’s also a very well-connected and dangerous human.”

“You’ve met?” he said in surprise, knowing that while they lived in Lima, L.T. had maintained his feline appearance almost entirely before anyone other than Brittany and her family, which had later grown to include Santana.

A slight harrumph of distaste accompanied his reply. “Several times. Pretty sure she knew what I was to Brittany. She’s got a good strong gift of Sight, and good instincts about most people.”

“Sue is one of those people who’s difficult to like, but impossible not respect,” Santana offered a trifle sourly. “And she and Kurt always had a really weird sort of affection for each other. Even when he was totally terrified of her, he still had the guts to sneak in and steal her private videos on a dare, and convince her to let him and Mercedes give her a make-over.”

“She gave him a nickname in return. A good one, not a mean one,” Brittany offered.

Adam nodded. “He mentioned once that she likes to refer to him as Porcelain.”

The girls shared a smile. “He used to be Lady-face but he didn’t like that name and asked for a new one,” Santana said with a shrug. "Personally I like the original better.”

“Has Kurt ever showed you our Vogue video from sophomore year?” Brittany asked. “We were really good. Sue was the star, but me and San were background dancers, and so were Kurt and Mercedes.”

Adam laughed. “I haven’t seen that, but now I’m dying to.”

“I still have a copy somewhere,” Santana told him, lips curving into a surprisingly fond smile at the memory of making that video. “Remind me when we get back and I’ll dig it out for you. Make Kurt watch it with you, but don’t let him nitpick. He gets embarrassed when he sees himself on video, especially stuff from his chubby little Campbell’s Kid days, but while it is fun to tease him about that, it can be a real drag listening to him pick at what he thinks are major design flaws. Especially when it’s actually good shit.”

“You should watch it,” Brittany agreed, her face surprisingly serious. “Kurt choreographed that whole video. Artie directed us, and Mercedes helped wherever anyone needed a hand, but Kurt is the one who planned everything. He was really good at seeing in big-picture ways.”

Santana agreed. “That shoot was the first time I realized he was destined to be a coven leader one day, if his powers ever came in. Not mine, necessarily, but someone’s. He wasn’t even a Cheerio yet, but he had half the squad taking orders and performing like they’d just walked off a professional stage somewhere. They just kind of naturally fell in line once he started giving direction. He did it to the football team once too. Had the entire goon-squad hoofing it on the football field to “Single Ladies”, and I don’t think most of them even realized how easily he did it. If they’d kept him on the team, I’m betting they’d have won more than just the one game that season.”

“He did a Judy Garland Show tribute once too. And he did his own costuming and choreography for a lot of songs, even when he didn’t really have to. He made costumes for a lot of us too.”

“You should see the ones he made for Lady Gaga week.”

Realizing that the girls were just warming up, Tubbington snorted, cutting them off short. “Folks, seriously, this is fun and all, but if we want to do this thing then we’d better get started. Kurt ain’t gonna thank us for keeping his boy out past curfew.”

“I’m not a child,” Adam reminded him grumpily. He had been enjoying those few minutes of pleasant reminiscing, allowing the vision they painted of a young Kurt in full creative mode to settle the nervous butterflies in his stomach. Then, seeing the understanding look in the Familiar’s green eyes, he sighed. Of course. The others knew how jittery he was about doing this and had been deliberately giving him a respite to settle himself. However, L.T. was correct. If they did not get started soon, he might very well change his mind and ask to be taken home. And that would be a waste, and a personal disappointment, even if the others did not hold him to blame. “But you’re right. The sooner we begin, the sooner we can leave this place.”

The girls did not argue. Adam sensed a certain amount of unease in both of them, and that was startling. Kurt had told him that ever since his coven had anchored him to the real world from the Void he could just slightly sense each of them. Mostly just flashes of emotion with a little ‘taste’ of the sender when someone got particularly worked up about something. Adam supposed he might have tapped into that a bit when he solidified his own emotional link to Kurt.

Speaking of which, he deliberately opened that channel a bit wider and reached out to Kurt. He felt a start of surprise, then a rush of concern. He concentrated on pushing back a sense of ‘okay’ and felt Kurt’s anxiety lessen. A sensation of love thrilled through Adam, then the connection backed off to where it had been before. Just the same light awareness that he always carried now. Realizing the others were staring at him as he stared off into space with a no-doubt stupid smile on his face, he clarified, “Kurt. My bond to him is still active at this distance. I just tried to send him a sense that we’re all right and I felt him respond.”

“Whoa,” Tubbington said, eyes wide. “Son, that’s no mean feat. I’ve known exactly one pair of witches in my life who could do that, and they’d been together over forty years! And this also takes a load off if we need help, because you now have an extra way of calling in the cavalry.”

Santana elbowed Adam, looking rather proud. “Way to go, Romeo! You two must’ve had quite a party if you bonded that deep. And speaking of going deep, who…”

“Santana!” the other three chorused, Brittany lightly scolding, Tubbington exasperated, and Adam mortified.

She just smiled smugly and flounced to the door of the choir room, her scarlet skirt swishing with every satisfied click of her matching high-heeled boots. Brittany stifled a laugh behind her hand, then reached out to catch her girlfriend’s hand as she caught up to her. Tubbington just rolled his eyes, flashed back into cat form and sauntered after the pair, leaving Adam to trail in their wake. As he watched the girls speed up, evidently having a particular destination in mind, Adam could not help but notice that both of them had chosen ensembles of red and white today. He knew that those were the colors of this school, and he found himself wondering if they had made the choice to evoke memories of their head-bitch-in-charge Cheerios days. He suspected they had made plans to come here today, with or without his companionship. After all, they’d had no way of knowing how long it would be before he was up to such a challenge.

Somehow, though, that fact made him feel even more determined to keep up his courage and see today’s adventure through with them.

~*~*~*~*~

“You look happy all of a sudden,” Elliott observed, watching Kurt’s previously somber face light up with a sudden unexplained joy. “I didn’t think you’d find the properties of teleportation that fascinating.”

Kurt looked at him in surprise, realizing that he had tuned out of the lesson Elliott was conducting, though some part of him must have been listening since his latest notebook page was almost full already. Eyes shining a brilliant shade of grayish-blue, he revealed, “Adam and the others made it safely to Lima and he’s doing okay so far.” He touched a hand to his chest, covering his heart as he said, “He reached out to me and I could feel him again … or still … I don’t know, but whichever it is, I can sense him.”

“At this distance?” Dani said in astonishment. She had been sitting on the couch strumming Elliott’s guitar, offering an occasional comment as she listened to Monica and Elliott instruct Kurt in a few of the finer points of their powers. The others had only been gone about half an hour, but poor Kurt had been a nervous wreck ever since. He had done his best to cover it up by scribbling diligently into his notebook, but Dani had seen the jittering of his leg under the table, the chewing of his lower lip, the anxious twirling of a drum-stick that Johnny had left on the table. That was part of the reason she had started playing the guitar, a nice gentle folk-song that Kurt had once mentioned his mother teaching him when he was a little boy. She played it softly, unobtrusively, willing a little thread of witchcraft into the melody to enhance the good memories associated with it. “That’s amazing, honey! Can he feel you back, do you think?”

Kurt beamed at her. “He can. He did! Adam sent me a little ‘all is well’ feeling, and I know it was a conscious decision. I had no idea that our connection would be so strong!”

“Sheesh, and these guys haven’t even exchanged formal vows yet,” Monica said, exchanging an impressed glance with Johnny.

The young man whistled. He had been writing down some notes of his own. Seeing that the others had Kurt’s tutelage well in hand for now, he had decided to make a copy of his ‘recipe book’ for a wedding gift. That’s what they called the catalog of practical use spells that he was always collecting. He had made up a few originals over the years and he was starting with those. An ingredient here, an incantation there, and he could do some truly astonishing spells to transform mundane tasks into magical ones. Kurt liked to tease him that he should write a book and call it ‘Home Ec for Witches’, so he had decided to give it a try, opting against gift-giving secrecy in favor of making sure this was something the couple would actually like to have. Kurt had been thrilled, and certain that Adam would be too.

“I’m glad,” Johnny said. “I didn’t want to say anything, but I was a little concerned when they took off so suddenly. I was going to volunteer to go with.”

Seeing Kurt’s questioning look, he morphed his features several times in rapid succession. Each face was less memorable than the one before it. By the time he looked like himself again, understanding had dawned in each of his companions’ faces.

“You still could,” Elliott offered hesitantly, speaking to Johnny but looking at Kurt. “If you think they might need an extra hand. I’m not sure where they went but …”

In spite of the peace of mind it might have given him to know there was an extra pair of eyes watching out for Adam, Kurt declined the offer. “No, I really appreciate that but I think having too many people around waiting to catch him just might be what causes Adam to stumble. This is a huge step for him. He already refused my offer to go along, and I have to trust that if he needs more help, then one of them will send word.”

“Doesn’t even need to be magical word,” Monica reminded them, waving her phone in the air. “I told Brittany I’d be on stand-by text if they need us.”

Forcing himself to relax again, Kurt smiled at her. “Thanks. I’m glad one of us was thinking practically.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “One of the pitfalls of using magic a lot, especially in the early stages, is that you start forgetting that you still have all the regular stuff available. You’d be surprised how fast a posturing spell-caster can be taken out by a good old-fashioned kick to the nuts.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “Experience?”

“Damn straight,” she said, not elaborating but looking very self-satisfied just the same. “It’s still good to know we’ve got a psychic backup though.”

Johnny agreed. “I think it’s awesome. I knew way back in high school that your Potential was going to make you kick ass one day. That’s why you chose only the best for your coven.”

Dani burst out laughing and threw the miniature bean-bag she always carried in her pocket to play with when stressed at Johnny’s head, smacking him dead-center between the eyes and bringing forth a comically startled expression. “Some choice! Pretty sure we all ambushed him. Besides, aren’t you the boy who followed Kurt to New York like some kind of lovesick stalker, then just showed up at band practice and announced you were one of us?”

“Hey, my mom is originally from New York! I had people here!” he objected, then laughed. “But yeah, basically.”

“I seem to bring out the stalker in a lot of people,” Kurt said, catching the beanbag when Johnny chucked it at him in turn, and tossing it back to Dani. “Elliott moved all the way from New Jersey just to be near me, and he hadn’t even met me yet. I’m just that irresistible.”

Elliott was unable to keep from laughing at the tease, but he shrugged and said, “I admit it. But if you’d ever been to Paramus, you’d understand.”

Johnny offered him a fist to bump. “Those of us from Lima feel your pain, bro.”

Dani intejected, “So, getting back to Adam. He’s doing okay?”

“Seems to be,” Kurt said proudly. “At least so far. I don’t imagine they’ve had time to do much yet.”

Monica squeezed Kurt’s shoulder as she moved past him to take a seat across from Dani. Magic lessons could wait a while. “Do you know where they were planning to go?”

He shook his head, closing his notebook and moving to join the others. He was pretty sure he had not been paying as much attention as he should have been but hopefully the notes were good enough that he could go over them later. Kurt really was serious about wanting to learn as much about magic as he could, but right now all he could concentrate on was the potential danger his fiancé and friends might be putting themselves in. “Not exactly. Brittany said she had some kind of plan, but her ideas can be sort of unusual so I didn’t ask too many questions.”

“Brittany herself can be kind of unusual,” Dani agreed with a smile. She had become extremely fond of her ex girlfriend’s once-and-present girlfriend over the last few months. Brittany had a kind of whimsy and optimism that balanced well with Santana’s sarcasm and cynicism. They complemented one another in a way that she and Santana never had. The two of them had had good times together, but they had never really been anywhere close to being in love. That had been fine with Dani, who enjoyed a casual and fun relationship, but she had realized quickly that Santana could never truly be happy with anything less than the real thing. They were a far better match as coven-sisters, and it made her happy that she liked Santana’s true love so much for her own sake. “But I’ve notice that she tends to get her way nearly all of the time.”

Kurt laughed. “I’ve noticed that too. Sometimes it hasn’t worked out in my favor, either, but she always means well and she’s far more patient than most of us.”

“Then I think we should be patient too, and leave the others to whatever they have planned,” Elliott said practically. He glanced outside, seeing that the still thickly falling snow had managed to accumulate on the balcony all the way up to the base of the window. “Now, since my instincts tell me that you aren’t in the mood for quiet study time anymore, and going for a walk isn’t an option, what do you say we call your friend up and see if he’d be willing to meet you for a little combat instruction?”

Kurt perked up immediately. He had always been a good student, but he could admit that since he had taken control of his physical development, he much preferred active pursuits like dance and stage fighting to quieter academic ones. Anxiety had a way of making him fidgety, and a bit paranoid. It would be good to have some aerobic exercise to take the edge off.

“Sure! Only . . .” he hesitated. “I doubt he’d be willing to go out into this mess just because I’m a little restless, even if I was willing to let him try. I’d ask you to transport him, except would you even be able to use magic on him if he said yes?”

Elliott was stumped by that one. The only magic damper he’d ever met was Rachel Berry, and he had never actually tried around her. “I have no idea.”

“You should be able to,” Monica offered. “I’m not too familiar with magic-dampers, but this Troy guy knows what he is and I assume he must be able to control his power since he’s been put in charge of a class full of young witches swinging heavy sticks and swords at each other.”

Kurt smiled. “That makes sense and it’s probably not even a big deal. I figured out when I first Saw what an unusually large number of magic-dampers there are at NYADA that the faculty – aka the senior coven – recruits some students based on that particular ability, trusting them to keep the rest of us from blowing each other to bits when passions run high.”

“Which they’re bound to do, at a school full of musical prodigies,” Johnny said wryly, having witnessed the various storm-outs, fist-fights, and other explosions of temper that had been a part of everyday life back in high school whenever he had spent time with New Directions. “It wouldn’t do much good to recruit them for that ability, and then keep them in the dark about how to use it. Probably something they’d reveal over time, if the kid proved to have the temperament for the job.”

“I agree. And Troy is probably the most laid-back person at school,” Kurt said, “though that doesn’t mean he has a problem with slapping people down when they endanger themselves or others. You should have heard him blister Blaine’s ears after class the day he took a crack at me with that bo staff. Blaine pouted for days about how mean he was, and of course, how disloyal I was for not cutting in and telling Troy that it was actually my fault for defending myself too aggressively.”

Monica sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”

“Since he never bothered to come hear the band play, you never had the displeasure,” Johnny said, his lips twisting in distaste. “But I got to observe Blaine for two years when I was drumming for the glee club. The guy is a total attention whore. Takes all of the credit but none of the responsibility. Possessive as hell. Passive-aggressive one minute, and throwing blame around like confetti the next.”

“Charming,” she said. “He sounds a lot like my mom’s ex-husband. I threw her a party the day she finally showed that bastard the door. So anyway, Kurt, you think Troy can control his dampening power long enough to hitch a ride?”

There was one easy way to find out. Kurt picked up his phone and dialed the number from the little hand-scribbled contact list that the Apples had left with Adam after their recent visit. Their way of making sure that he knew he was welcome back into the group and open to chat with them any time. Someone had scribbled ‘Kurt too!’ with several fat little hearts and exclamation points in purple gel pen at the top of the page.

“Hi, Troy? This is Kurt Hummel.” He relaxed at the easy friendliness the other man greeted him with. They exchanged a few pleasantries and compared notes on the snow, then Kurt said, “Actually, that’s why I called. I’m already going a little stir-crazy at home and I was wondering if this might be a good time for my first combat lesson. Are you able to accept a ride to the school via transportation magic?”

The other man was all aboard the chance to escape his apartment for a couple of hours. And even better, one of his roommates was a Transporter, so he arranged for them to meet Kurt in the small practice room where he taught freshmen how to flip and fall with safety. It had lots of padding and would be ideal for what might well prove to be a bumpy lesson.

“Sounds perfect. We’ll meet you there,” Kurt said, hanging up the call. Seeing the eager smiles on his friends’ faces, he held up a hand. “I know you guys want to come along, but for the first lesson, I think I’d rather get my ass kicked without too many witnesses. If all goes well, I’ll ask him about expanding his class to include the rest of you.”

Dani paused halfway in the act of climbing out of the deep sofa cushions, and flopped back with a sigh. “Party-pooper. Fine, but keep your phone on, okay? None of us three can Transport so if the others call we’ll need to contact you the old fashioned way. Or you can call us, whichever.”

“I’ll keep mine on,” Elliott promised. If he transformed, whatever he’d been carrying in his pockets would bespell itself into become part of the black leather collar and silver triquetra nametag that Kurt had made him (with a little help from Johnny) for his Christmas gift. That was a new convenience Elliott had never enjoyed before and he loved it. “We’ll see you guys later.”

~*~*~*~*~

Adam stood motionless, feeling like a field mouse under the beady eye of a hawk as he was circled, his appearance catalogued and his worth measured by a tall, hard-faced, blonde woman in a blue Adidas track suit.

“So,” she croaked, the sound making Adam jump after having been studied in silence for the longest minute of his life. The girls had led him to an office just off the school gymnasium, where this woman was standing with arms crossed over her chest and an air of impatient waiting filling every line of her body. She had barely acknowledged her former students before starting her intense perusal. “This is the Lost Boy, safely back from Neverland. All grown up and ready to spy.”

The woman had been squinting at Adam suspiciously since the second their group had walked in, but abruptly her eyes widened and she blinked rapidly for a moment. It was then that Adam realized she had been using Sight to take his full measure. “Miss Sylvester,” he said evenly, figuring that this could be nobody else. “Kurt speaks highly of you.”

Her nostrils flared. “Of course he does. In spite of his peculiar addiction to being ordered around by cow-eyed, hair-gelled midgets, he’s not an idiot. And he’s finally come into his magic.” She nodded, looking satisfied with that fact. “Fashion sense second in the world only to one Sue Sylvester, a high-kick that would make the Rockettes weep, a singing voice so high it’s only discernible to dogs and horny gay men, and enough Potential to give my Sight a permanent headache. I always knew Porcelain would go places if he could just get his head out of the clouds and stop waiting on the needs of some boy. He doesn’t need someone who will remain a petulant child until they’re ninety. He needs a partner who truly respects the man that he’s becoming. Now why should I believe that’s you?”

She gave him another sharp glance and snapped her fingers in three sharp clicks right under his nose, demanding an answer. A moment ago Adam had been tense, and even a bit frightened by this intimidating stranger, but suddenly he relaxed. Though they looked nothing alike, in her manner and protectiveness toward a boy she had clearly decided was hers to look after, she reminded Adam irresistibly of his grandmother.

“Because I love him,” he said honestly. “Not because he rescued me, which he did in more ways than one, or because of some sense of entitlement. I love him because he’s special; strong, soft, honest, mysterious, loving, protective, a bit prickly, and just … unexpected in so many ways. He needs me and I need him, but we complement each other, and I don’t think I’ll ever tire of learning about him, or of the many surprises he’ll bring to my life.”

Sue looked straight into his eyes a moment, then seemed to come to some decision. “It’s about time someone figured that out.” She finally looked at the girls, who had been watching with interested eyes. “And the two of you are part of New York’s most fabulous coven, eh? I always knew you’d amount to something if you gave it a little effort. Or should I say, you three?”

She shot the chubby cat in Brittany’s arms a knowing look. Lord Tubbington just blinked placidly back at her, as smug and secretive as a sphinx. Sue gave a tiny huff and turned her attention back to Adam. Her expression was suddenly grim. “You have Sight?” He nodded. “Then you’d better brace yourself to take a good look around. Anderson is treating this town like a magical piggy bank, siphoning power off of the witches and storing it using normal folk somehow. And if I ever find out who taught him that nasty little trick, I’m going to personally drop kick them from here to the Sahara. It’s hard enough to keep teenagers awake in class without half of them acting like they’re on some sort of drug.”

“But surely his influence isn’t keeping witches mesmerized all the way from Westerville!” Santana objected. “He can’t possibly have gained that much power that quickly. I always snapped out of his trance within a few minutes of being out of range.”

“That’s because you had good training,” Sue snarled, jerking a thumb towards herself, “And a decently suspicious nature. In spite of having a job at Dalton; which he had no training for, so clearly another use of dirty persuasion there; Anderson spends more time at McKinley than he did when he was a student here. He seems to be in that choir room every time I turn around and you know all the musical kids gravitate toward either band practice or glee club. Unfortunately, my attempts to destroy their evil influence have been thwarted time and time again.”

Adam looked at her, wondering if Coach Sylvester had any notion how much she sounded like she had just stepped out of a cartoon. It was certainly true that witches, even those with Potential only, tended to be drawn towards music in some fashion, be they dancers, singers, instrumentalists, or composers, but even if the entire lot were possessed of magic, surely this was an exaggeration. “And is this year’s glee club particularly … nefarious?” he asked, stifling the urge to smile.

“The worst,” she growled. “I’ve managed to weed out a few of the better singers by arranging for their parents to get transferred to better jobs in other towns, but the rest keep yodeling on. Damn that Will Schuester and his affinity for giving all his attention to the wrong kids.”

“Wrong kids?” Adam said, looking at the girls for explanation.

Brittany looked sad, hugging Tubbington a little tighter for comfort as she said, “I didn’t want to believe that Mr. Shue was a bad guy.” Seeing Santana’s frown, she said, “Haven’t you ever noticed? He’s like Blaine. Only weaker. He probably thought he was helping less-fortunate witches by giving his attention to the ones with no real magic. Rachel, Finn, Blaine. All the Standards and regular witches kind of had to fend for themselves, and the more true Power and Potential we had, the more he shoved us aside.”

Santana nodded in understanding. Brittany had always had a gift for sensing other witches true nature and guessing at least some of their abilities. “I always knew he favored kids who hit his teenage nostalgia button. Straight and narrow types who reminded him of the good ‘ol days when everything was going his way. Huh! It never even occurred to me to wonder how in a single year he went from the brace-faced loser that Bryan Ryan so awesomely mocked, to a popular lead singer who hooked up with the female-lead-slash-prom-queen and led his choir to Nationals victory. Shue is a Wild witch.”

Her girlfriend nodded. “I didn’t get it at first, but I think he was helping Blaine because he felt sorry for him. He’s not a very powerful witch, but he could totally have liked seeing someone like himself get all the power and popularity. Same with Rachel. He loves her voice, but when they first met, she used to get bullied a lot over her lack of taste and horrible personality. If Mr. Shue had enough Sight to know that she’s also a magical black-hole who would never be a ‘real’ witch, he probably thought he was doing her a favor. He owed her one after she dragged Finn into the group.”

“Yeah, Shue always saw Frankenteen as a taller and dumber version of himself.”

“What’s this about Finn?” Adam asked, a bit surprised. “I thought you said that you didn’t know whether he’d been a witch.”

“He hadn’t manifested, but he had Potential,” Brittany said. “And it’s hard to tell what kind of witch a person will be until their power comes through.”

Adam agreed. “And his mother also has latent magic, so the odds are good that he would have eventually gained the power. In fact, if Rachel was very close to him for the majority of his teen years, it is entirely possible that he had the same problem that Kurt did.”

Santana blew a raspberry. “She was always around. Even when they were broken up, which happened about every other week, she was all over him. I always assumed Finn was just a power-failure, like a lot of witches who don’t have much Potential.” Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That might explain the whole shooting himself with a training rifle thing, though. The guy was klutzy as hell, so everyone just assumed that it was accident, but if he was on his own for the first time and his power started to manifest with no control, he might very well have set that gun off without even knowing it.”

“Exactly,” Sue said, looking pleased with her former students’ comprehension. “But unfortunately, it’s too late to matter for him now. And however Blaine got started, the fact is that Schuester most likely put him onto the idea that he deserved to use magical short-cuts, and the boy ran with it. He’s completely out of control now. His big-lipped bestie is starting to look like an extra from ‘The Walking Dead’, and some of those Warbler boys aren’t far behind him. They spend half their lives mooning around the Lima Bean, just waiting on Oil Can Henry to drop by. It’s sickening. Porcelain needs to get his ridiculously pert hiney back here and do something before anyone else gets sucked dry and tossed aside like a cheap juice box.”

Brittany stepped closer, her pale eyes filled with concern. “Sam?”

Sue’s thin lips pressed into a narrow line. “He’s never been the brightest, but these days he seems to have the IQ of a doorknob. I give him until summer before the damage is too severe to reverse. Assuming someone can reverse it. He’s been used for who knows how long as a magical thermos that never gets put in the dishwasher.”

Clearly alarmed, Santana said, “We’ll go check the situation out right now. We just need a good disguise for Adam.”

“He can transform himself, but Kurt made us promise not to give ourselves away today if we see Blaine,” Brittany explained to Sue.

“Smart,” the older woman declared. Head tipping to one side, she looked Adam over and a slow smile crept over her face, somehow reminding him of that old cartoon where the Grinch gets his idea about stealing Christmas from the people of Whoville. “You know … you look just about the right size. And you won’t even have to change your hair much.”

Adam had no idea what she meant, but Brittany and Santana suddenly grinned wickedly, evidently catching her drift. He gulped. “I’m not going to like this idea, am I?”

~*~*~*~*~

“Left! Right! Left! Right! Faster, Kurt. Keep your guard up and your concentration on me. Don’t watch my hands, watch my eyes. Trust your peripheral vision to keep the rest in sight. Just like driving a car, you keep your attention focused forward and high, just glancing around from time to time to get your bearings and check on other people. Then you can see and anticipate all. If you can read your opponent, you can read his actions. Like this!”

Troy Duncan kept on moving as he spoke. Contrary to Kurt’s expectations, there was no magic being used in this first lesson. Instead, Kurt was standing at the center of a large padded practice mat, sweat soaking his hair and sleeveless black tank top as he flung his arms up and down, jumped and ducked, dodged from side to side, doing his best to counter a seemingly endless supply of rubber balls that his teacher was flipping at him. The arsenal ranged from larger red dodge balls (Kurt had always loathed that game and his heart sank when he saw the bucket of them at Troy’s feet.), smaller blue handballs, and an annoying array of tiny multicolored super balls. It looked like the other man had raided a child’s gumball machine.

Kurt hollered a wordless objection when Troy unexpectedly grabbed the 2/3rd empty bucket and tossed the entire remaining contents at him. He tried and failed to avoid being pelted from every direction, several of the tinier ones hitting the wall behind him and bouncing back to add in a rear assault. He cursed in surprise when one bopped him in the back of the head. Then he lost his balance, feet sliding out from under him as he stepped down on a stray handball and went flying.

“Oof,” he grunted, rubbing his abused head and scowling up at Troy, who grinned and offered a hand to help him up. At least the landing had been soft. Kurt accepted the help, pushing the safety goggles he had been given – much to his initial confusion – up to rest on top of his head. Safety first, last, and always was still Troy’s motto. He was wearing a protective athletic cup for the same reason, and one of the dodge balls had given him reason to be grateful for that. “That was just rude.”

Troy laughed, as did Elliott and Troy’s friend Dale, who had given him a ride over and then stayed to watch the entertainment. Kurt knew the girl from his dramatic acting course. The non-combatants were watching from behind an equipment rack a few feet behind Troy, where they were less likely to be pelted by flying ammunition. “Sorry, but it had to be done. You were getting pretty good at avoiding single and double strikes, but you had relaxed your guard because you were expecting me to do the same thing I’d done every other time. You were watching my hands, expecting me to grab a ball and only paying attention to which hand it would come from.”

“Whereas if I’d been watching your eyes like you told me to, I might have seen that you intended to change tactics,” Kurt said with a sigh, filling in the blank he read in Troy’s instructor-tone. “Then you cheated, because you know that it’s likely Blaine will.”

He smiled. “Exactly,” he said approvingly. “You’ve learned a lot of new tricks in the last few months. There’s no reason not to expect Blaine to have done the same. You don’t know that he’s viewing you as a source of danger, or that he’s made plans for how to attack you if you meet again, but you also don’t know that he hasn’t and it’s better to be prepared.”

Elliott chimed in, “We also don’t know what kind of backup he might have. We know he uses coercion and power theft to get what he wants, but we have no info on how far his influence has spread or how strong he is. That’s what Adam and some of our other friends are trying to find out right now. All we know for sure is that he didn’t have very good control six months ago, and he’s the type of person who will always take the quick and dirty way over anything resembling hard work.”

“We also know that he won’t hesitate to strike out with everything he’s got when he feels cornered, even if it means killing,” Kurt said grimly. “Blaine probably thinks he killed Adam, and yet he was able to go straight back to his previously scheduled life after it happened.”

Troy shook his head. “So he’s not likely to let his conscience sway him toward a reasonable argument like ‘please stop siphoning people’s magic and life-force because that’s really really bad for them’,” he said dryly.

“From experience, I’d have to say that wouldn’t even slow him down,” replied Kurt, rubbing a hand over his stomach to ease a pain that had nothing at all to do with the ball that had whisked past his defenses a few minutes ago. Thinking about Blaine and all that he had done; all that Kurt had allowed him to do out of loving blindness; made him feel ill. “Let’s get back to work.”

Patting him on the shoulder in wordless sympathy, Troy nodded and started collecting his weapons back into the basket. Kurt started grabbing some too, and after a moment, Elliott and Dale exchanged a nod and also started picking up strays.

“Now that we’re both warmed up, I want you try and deflect the balls using your magic. Bat them with telekinesis, levitate yourself out of range, whatever. Only defense, though. We’ll get to offensive magics later on, and in the mean time I don’t want you to get mad and accidentally turn one of us into a tiki torch.”

Kurt had explained his powers in detail to Troy when he went to him requesting lessons. It was important that they both knew exactly what they were working with. “I won’t, I promise,” he said. He knew his friend was just joking, but the reminder had him concentrating on separating his ‘choir’ of abilities so that the thermal magic was nothing more than a background presence. Better to be safe than sorry.

“Good. Now, take a few deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Let the excitement from round one go, and approach round two with a clear head. Take a couple of minutes to center yourself, then we’ll go again.”

~*~*~*~*~

Adam felt rather foolish standing before a long mirror wearing a bright green track suit, his blond hair fluffed up into an unfamiliar ‘do that reminded him of his father’s unfortunate flirtation with a mullet when Adam was seven, and his facial features covered up by a glamour of the smirking cheer coach. He had initially tried transforming himself, but Sue had insisted he had one detail or another incorrect. Her nose was too long, her eyes were too blue, she would never wear a ridiculous expression like that! Finally, he had turned to the girls and silently begged for help. The amused duo set a spell that would simply mirror this woman. As long as one or the other of them kept him within their field of vision, the disguise would hold. And since no one had any intention of leaving Adam alone in this town that suited him just fine.

The girls both found “Pseu” Sylvester hilarious. Adam was so comparatively mind-mannered that they both had doubts as to whether he could be convincing, but it was easily the safest disguise in town. Even more so than a bland non-attention-grabbing stranger would have been, because the people of Lima, Ohio; particularly former students of McKinley high school, did not mess with Sue Sylvester. This disguise would allow Adam to go anywhere and take a good look around without the need to be furtive, or create a helpful back story.

He would try to avoid conversation, though he actually did a better than fair Midwestern American accent, and thought he could duplicate Sue’s rough alto speaking voice. He had heard Kurt mimic her enough times to have a good idea of her cadence as well. The attitude was another story entirely, but there was something rather comforting about Sue’s swaggering confidence. He was already riding a terror-fueled adrenaline rush just from the thought of going out into a strange open expanse and possibly spotting his enemy, but maybe if he held on to the real Sue Sylvester’s bravado, he could convince himself not to panic.

As they left the gymnasium with instructions to head to the Lima Bean, which was apparently still Blaine Anderson’s favorite hang-out, Lord Tubbington signaled Brittany to let him down. Then he hopped right into the startled Adam’s arms, causing him to fall back with a grunt when he suddenly found himself juggling a 20 pound feline.

“I gotcha kid,” L.T. projected.

As the cat settled in his arms, Adam relaxed a bit more. The sight of Sue Sylvester toting a former student’s pet might earn them a few side-eyes, but if Adam walked confidently, particularly with Brittany and Santana strutting on either side of him like a pair of beautiful body-guards, then chances were good that other people would just shrug it off as one of Sue’s eccentricities. The change of position would also give L.T. a better angle to protect the younger witches. Because Adam knew without asking that the Familiar did indeed have enough power to be dangerous should anyone attack them.

Being literally surrounded by friends had him feeling a lot better than he had expected to. He tensed as they walked outside, surprised somehow to see that the blizzard they’d left behind in New York was nowhere in evidence. Here the day was just partly cloudy with a hint of rain in the air, the temperature unusually mild for January. Which was lucky, considering that none of them had thought to bring along a coat.

The unfamiliar space was enough to make Adam fight back a surge of panic, but Lima was not quite as wide open and rural as he’d been led to expect from Kurt’s descriptions. There were plenty of buildings spaced relatively close together. A variety of shops, grocery outlets, salons, restaurants and the like. Plenty of vehicles – mostly pickup trucks - and enough pedestrians going about their weekend tasks with no particular notice of the strange quartet, that Adam was able to get his bearings fairly quickly.

Santana and Brittany both touched his arm every so often, grounding him in the present with the solid warmth of their friendship. Adam was grateful. It was getting easier day by day to separate himself from the remembered horror of the Void, but having a solid grounding in the real world was still a much appreciated gift.

He went rigid again when they entered the coffee shop, but fortunately there was no sign of Blaine Anderson. Adam breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Then his attention was grabbed by a sharp gasp from Brittany. Her eyes had abruptly filled with tears and she reached for Santana’s hand behind his back, her other hand reaching out to touch her Familiar.

“Brittany?” he said quietly. “Are you all right, darling?”

Santana elbowed him in the ribs, hissing, “Sue!”

Abruptly reminded that his doppelganger would not be behaving in such an openly solicitous manner, Adam drew himself up, looking down his nose at the room and grimacing as if the smell of it was not pleasing.

“Sam,” Brittany nearly whimpered, sniffling back her tears.

Adam followed her gaze to a vacant-looking blond chap who was sitting by the window staring into space and playing with the little sugar packets from a tray next to him. At first, Adam could not imagine what was the matter. But on a hunch he activated his Sight and nearly gave himself away again with a gasp of dismay. To his witch’s vision, this boy looked like a famine victim. Thin, emaciated, shriveled from the inside out, and carrying a strange fever-brightness in his eyes. He looked … empty.

“Shit,” Santana whispered. “Trouty, what has he done to you?”

Sam Evans seemed to feel the eyes upon him, for he suddenly looked up and smiled. Adam had to quickly revert his sight back to normal, unable to tolerate the vision of what Blaine had done to his ‘best friend’ any longer. He had a horrible suspicion that he himself had looked much like this young man when Kurt had pulled him from the Void, wasted away both internally and externally. The difference was that Sam’s damage would be invisible to most people.

“Hey,” Sam greeted. The sight of Sue Sylvester seemed to confuse him. Or perhaps it was the addition of Tubbington that brought the expression of puzzlement. Either way, he managed to recovery enough to nod respectfully, then ask the girls, “What are you doing back home?”

“Just stopping by to visit our folks,” Santana lied smoothly. “Thought we’d stop in for coffee and we ran into Coach on the way, so we invited her to join us.”

He blinked stupidly, as if the words were taking an unusually long time to process. “Oh. Want to sit?”

Brittany did so at once, signaling the others to do the same. She reached out to touch Sam’s hand, squeezing it gently. “You look … tired,” she said, struggling not to show him how upset his appearance had made her. She had loved this boy once and it hurt her deeply to see him so abused. Particularly when he did not even know it.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I think I’m fighting a cold or something. I just never seem to have much energy any more.”

He offered Tubbington a bite of the croissant he had been nibbling on, evidently recalling that Brittany’s cat loved human food. L.T. politely sniffed the offering, then snapped off a huge bite that nearly took a bit of Sam’s finger with it.

“Say, have you seen Anderson anywhere around here?” Santana asked abruptly, seeming to feel that they were wasting time. As an excuse, she added, “Just want to make sure he isn’t lying in wait to spring another stupid trap for winning back Kurt. He and I are friends again, y’know.”

“Cool. Yeah, me too. Or maybe not,” he said, looking a little sad. “I think I made Kurt mad when I stuck with Blaine after their last break-up. I wanted to be friends with both, but I guess that’s not really possible. I chose wrong and now Blaine’s not my friend either.”

He looked so down-hearted that Adam could not help feeling sorry for the young man. Sam had backed the wrong horse, but it wasn’t as though he’d made the choice entirely of his own free will. Sam was a Standard and probably had no idea how cruelly his supposed friend had actually treated him. “So you don’t know where Blaine is?” he said, remembering just in time to affect Sue’s manner of speaking. Pulling himself up a bit he gave his best approximation of a snarl and said, “He owes me a debt and I intend to collect on it.”

Fortunately, Sam did not notice any flaws in his performance (which to judge from Santana’s expression had been piss poor) and he shrugged. “Probably the music store. I hear that he and Dave go there every Saturday.”

“Dave,” Santana repeated, incredulous. “Do you mean Karofsky? Since when do they hang out?”

“Since they started dating,” he said absently, once again building a little pyramid out of sugar packets. “A couple of months now. It’s cool and all, but I guess Dave still doesn’t like me from high school. Once they started dating, Blaine never wanted to hang out any more.”

The witches rose from their seats, any interest in a cup of coffee vanishing. Brittany hugged Sam long and tight, trying to express her sorrow for his condition in the comforting gesture. Sam hugged her back, seemingly desperate for a friendly contact, and probably not even knowing why. Santana was not as fond of her former classmate, but she also gave him a quick and sincere hug. Adam clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Count your blessings, kid. Blaine Anderson is on nobody’s side but his own. Take it from me. Uh … Sue Sylvester.”

Sam still looked a bit confused by their behavior, or perhaps bafflement was just his normal state, and smiled sweetly at them. “It was nice seeing you again. If you see Kurt, tell him I’m sorry.”

“We will,” Brittany told him. “Be well, Sam.”

Sam went back to his sugar sculpture, almost seeming to forget they’d even been there.

“That poor fellow,” Adam murmured as the others once again formed their safety formation around him and led him out of the shop. “Do you think that he’s …?”

“Dying?” Santana said. “I’m afraid he might be. If Blaine hasn’t bothered him for a couple of months and he’s still in this kind of shape, I have no idea if he’ll be able to recover.”

Tubbington chimed in, projecting aloud now that they were out of earshot, “Withdrawal, I’d say. That posturing lawn-gnome was using him as a magical dumping ground for months, if not years, and even though Sam couldn’t access the magic or recognize it for what it was, he must have felt the effects of holding that much raw power. He probably feels like an uncharged battery these days. And I’ll bet you coins to catnip that the reason his dealer abandoned him for that other kid is that Sam had reached the point where he was too damaged to be useful. I don’t think I ever met David Karofsky. Is he a witch?”

“God, no. He’s as Standard as they come,” Santana snorted. “And he’s emotionally vulnerable and needy, or he was when we knew him, and that’s just the kind of guy Blaine is most attracted to.”

“Isn’t this the tormentor turned friend that Kurt was telling me about?” Adam asked, thinking the name sounded familiar.

Santana tossed her head. “That’s him. He was a closet-case with raging hormones for Kurt, who took his secret attraction out in bullying to the point that Kurt had to switch to Dalton Academy for half of Junior year. That’s where Blaine first got the chance to sink his hooks in. Kurt and Dave made up somehow and he came back. They even managed to become friends, or something close to it. Dave changed schools for senior year, but then he tried to commit suicide after he got outed by some idiot jock and started receiving bully payback in spades.”

The cat narrowed his eyes. “Ah, right. Now I remember him. And don’t try to pretend with me, Lopez. You were his friend too, and as broken up as anyone in this town when the kid tried to end things.”

“Sure, I was such a great friend that I never spoke to him again after junior prom season ended. So broken up that I never once got off my ass to go pay a visit when he was in the hospital,” she snapped. “He was vulnerable, and I did nothing. So vulnerable that Blaine Anderson was able to just swoop in like a fucking vulture and start picking his sorry gay carcass the minute they met again. I should have thought to put some kind of protection on him.”

Santana and Brittany exchanged a glance that Adam could not interpret. He had vaguely recognized the name from stories Kurt had told him about his high school days, but he had not realized there was so much more to the story than just a reformed bully turned casual friend. “So there’s no chance that he and Blaine simply met and developed some innocent attraction.”

Santana barked a laugh that was more eloquent than words. Brittany told him, “Dave had a bad crush on Kurt, and Kurt had to let him down gently. He told me that they tried to exchange emails for a while after he moved to New York, but they couldn’t find enough in common to keep it going. If David still has feelings for Kurt, even a little, then Blaine is probably using that against him.”

“Naturally, fucking with the same guy who initially brought him and Kurt together would appeal to the little bastard,” Santana growled, the high heels of her boots popping loudly against the concrete as she walked in hard angry strides. “Nothing like a little guilt-tinged, misplaced affection to leave someone open to coercion and a new reservoir for his dirty magic. I can just imagine Blaine, picking the scabs every chance he gets with tales about how Kurt played with both of their affections and abandoned them when they needed him most. I can hear the fucking violins squawking from here.”

She lapsed into silence and the others followed suit, giving her a few minutes to cool off.

Adam was just about to ask where they were going, a bit surprised to realize that he had been so distracted by the conversation that they had walked quite a distance without any feelings of fear overwhelming him, when his emotional reprieve ended. They had reached a little music shop quaintly called ‘Between the Sheets’, and there on the other side of the large front window, was the figure of Adam’s nightmares; slicked hair, garish colors, bow tie and all. And looking just as smugly full of himself as Adam remembered as he led a second larger man around the shop like an obedient pet.

Adam’s breathing suddenly picked up speed, coming in short frantic bursts, and he staggered as his knees became too weak to balance properly. Had it not been for the girls seizing him on either side, he undoubtedly would have fallen.

Just as he was about to fall into a full-fledged panic attack, they rushed him into the alley next to the shop, and an unexpected burst of pain hit Adam’s left hand. The four sharp pinpricks of L.T.’s claws biting into his flesh was like a dash of ice-water. The sharp pain centered Adam, focused him, and he abruptly began breathing again, a bit startled to realize that he had stopped. His heart was still thundering, but the initial wave of terror had passed.

Adam gulped and pulled in another shuddering breath. He deliberately loosened his rigid limbs and freed the cat from his too-tight grip, allowing the slightly squashed Familiar to drop to the ground. Tubbington did not seem to hold the discomfort against him, rubbing his round body comfortingly against Adam’s calves.

“Are you okay?” Brittany asked, placing her hand upon his cheek and looking deep into his eyes.

He nodded. “I am now.” He rubbed a hand over his sweating face, realizing it was a good thing that his coven-sisters had been holding a glamour on him. There was no way he could have held a disguise in place in that state. “Did you spot him?”

“I did, but I don’t think he saw us,” Santana said, rubbing a comforting hand over his back. “Too much, too soon, huh?”

“I’m afraid so. Pity, really. I was going to have you flicker my face, so that he would view the real me so briefly that he would think he was seeing things.”

Santana grinned. “I like that. We should add it to the list for next time, right up there with me shooting force field pot shots at him.”

“I was going to hex his sheet music, so that he kept getting REO Speedwagon no matter what he picked up.”

Adam laughed, a bit shaky but genuine. “Take it on the Run’, no doubt?” he guessed, knowing that giving that song to Blaine would appeal to Brittany’s quirky sense of humor. “By all means, proceed. I could use a few moments to get myself sorted.”

Though they were obviously tempted, Santana reluctantly decided against it. “No. I’d love to do it, but I don’t want to give away that we’re here just yet. L.T., could you take a quick peek inside and let us know for sure whether Dave shows signs of tampering? Then I’ll whisk us over to Mr. Hummel’s place.”

Tubbington moved behind them for cover and transformed into his human self. No way Blaine would recognize him. He entered the shop, staying inside for several minutes, then emerged with a roll of music in his hand and a cigarette dangling between his lips. He managed to light it up and take several quick puffs before Brittany snatched the cigarette away and stepped on it, shaking her finger in his face. “Lord Tubbington, you promised!”

The cat man sighed sadly at the sight of his crushed treasure. The little shop sold more than just sheet music and he had not been able to resist. He handed the music to Adam. “Here, kid. Give this to Kurt. He can do it for his midwinter shindig. He mentioned this morning that the Dean gave them the challenge of performing something out of their usual comfort zone. This should qualify. That boy hates country music, but tell him it’s from you and he’ll perform the hell out of it. Consider it my wedding gift.”

Adam unrolled the sheet and smiled. He felt a surge of warm affection towards L.T. He liked to come across as a gruff old cynic, but that tough exterior hid the heart of a marshmallow. “Thank you, sir. This is perfect. May I ask how you happened to buy it?”

As far as he knew, pure-bred Familiars did not typically earn money.

“Brittany spotted me a twenty. Just enough for a song and a pack of smokes.”

His witch gave him a blank look, then checked her purse and sighed. “What have I told you about doing that?”

“Not to,” he said with an unapologetic shrug. She held out her hand and he growled, handing over the rest of the pack. “Knew I shouldn’t have said that. Anyhow, your answer is yes. Big boy is following the greasy pied piper around like a big dumb rat, charmed to the eyeballs and carrying more than a little disruption to his aura. He’s built like a Mack truck, so he’s probably strong enough to store quite a bit of power before it dissipates, but that just means he’s going to get poisoned by it quicker. We need to get Kurt trained and back here damn soon, or a lot more folks could end up like Sam. From what Sue said, Blaine likes to steal his power from teenagers, so I’m guessing the singing canaries are probably not in very good shape either.”

“Teens have less training than older witches, which makes them more susceptible to his kind of influence,” Adam said grimly. “Trained witches would be more likely to realize what he was doing and level a counter-attack. I hate to say so, but he probably learned that lesson from his encounter with me. Considering what happened on my end, I would be surprised if our slimy little foe didn’t experience some form of backlash himself. In any case, he learned enough to have refined his nasty business since our last encounter.”

“We need to get this back to Kurt,” Santana said, rubbing her temples as though fighting a headache. Between transporting four people at once, and holding up a glamour spell for over an hour, her strength was beginning to ebb. “But I need a snack and little siesta before taking us home. Next stop, casa de Hummel.”

Adam agreed, “I could use some quiet time myself.”

The others understood his request. He had been more shaken up by seeing Blaine Anderson in the flesh than he had expected to be. The old horror was sweeping over him again, and it would be easier to fight it back into submission if he could get some peace and solitude. By now, the very air was making him twitchy with its open freshness, the wide blue expanse of the sky seeming to mock his fear.

Tubbington dropped down into cat form again and hopped into Brittany’s arms. Santana touched her and Adam, and they all disappeared from the alley without a trace.

END

#kadam #hummel coven #witch!kurt #kurt will feature more in the next chapter

37 notes · View notes