Chapter Text
Something’s been tugging at Kurt since he first ran off. For a long time, he didn’t know what it was. When he figured it out, he ran faster.
The countryside cried his name when he lost his father. He’d grown up running through hills, along rivers and streams, and trusting his instinct to guide him in the wild. Exploring was his finest passion when he was young. Even a scent on the wind would drive him mad until he found its source. All the time, he was reprimanded for acting too quickly, for getting distracted and sneaking off. But he loved it. Loved strengthening his senses and learning to hunt. He loved every stop on his family’s travels, hauling out of the RV, sick of being cooped up, and dashing off when his feet touched the ground.
As a pup, he never questioned life on the constant move. His mother came from a long line of free spirited wolves resistant to assimilation. His father simply would have followed her anywhere, and he did. From coast to coast and back again, Kurt saw the beauty of nature through his parents’ eyes as they visited every patch of wood the land could offer. In his earliest days, he knew what it was to be a wolf. With his parents by his side to lead him along, Kurt found his footing easier to hold on four legs than two.
Then he grew older, beautiful was suddenly just average and he turned his fascinated gaze toward humans. While his wolf was content running free and wild, the rest of him longed for the settled lives he watched in movies and read in books. Traveling across the country gave Kurt glimpses at all sorts of people. He longed for the variety of option, for the life that wasn’t his. He wondered what it would be like to go to school, and made home at libraries in every city they passed through so he could keep in touch with the foreign. He wanted to stay in one place, make friends, waste hours indoors catching up on this strange world so close, yet out of reach.
Getting what he wished for came with a price.
With the tragic accident of his mother’s death at the hand of hunters, Kurt saw his father’s destruction. He hadn’t words to describe the pain that rolled from his father in waves, crashing in the walls of the life they’d built. He hadn’t any comfort to extend as an eight year old suddenly motherless. Kurt longed for the way they’d always lived. He no longer wanted to go to school or settle down or make friends with the kids he’d idealized. He wanted his mother. Wanted his father to smile more. Wanted familiarity to drown him in its comfort until he could breathe again. But wolves do nothing well if not adapt.
In the RV that had her hand written all over it, they made their way to Ohio where Kurt’s aunt and uncle lived. Anger turned to sadness that would eventually break and scatter. They’d survive. Like people do.
Along their travels, they’d always come across other nomadic wolves and Kurt had made friends without hesitation or hindrance. Other pups were always willing to play until they tuckered themselves out. Kurt had rolled around in leaves with kids he’d never met before, played chase and wrestled, mimicked their parents by pretending to hunt. They bonded quickly and strongly, instinctually. Kurt knew it was different for humans, but not that it could be so difficult.
Whenever he was sad or lonely, though, a feeling of warmth would start somewhere low in his belly and spread out through his veins until everything within him felt light and painless.
Over the years, sadness waned and Kurt found his place, finally learned to stand fully on two feet. Routine replaced impulse. The child who’d sought adventure and discovery no longer cared to follow the trail of a bird in flight just to see where he ended up. Sharpened instincts grew duller. Everything felt different and he liked the way different made letting go of his heavy past easier.
Retreats into nature were like resets, but as he started to find his place in the world, the less he needed them. The easier it was to ignore the call inside him, to bury himself in pop culture and technology. The wolf settled while the man pursued his dreams. Coiled somewhere deep inside, the wolf was content to let the man shine as Kurt moved away from the small town with its nearby forests to a city of cement and skyscrapers.
Kurt convinced himself the wolf, his own nature, was suppressible. Letting go meant burying all of it. The blooming warmth that came in times of need stopped coming when he needed it, and Kurt called himself independent.
The head full of knowledge about heritage he forsook sat idle in the time he spent throwing his efforts into a life under stage lights.
Then his uncle called. A message was left urging Kurt to call back. When Kurt left rehearsal for the winter showcase, he played back the message and at once knew what the pang in his chest had been earlier in the day. Why the residual ache remained.
State lines and hundreds of miles made each step of Kurt’s journey to Ohio harder to take. He shouldn’t have been so far away, so unreachable.
In the months since, he’s been searching for something like a word on the tip of his tongue that he’d once heard once many years ago. For a way to reconnect to the people he lost and the life he abandoned. He’s passed back through lands he’d mostly forgotten relearning them as he remembers how to move gracefully on four legs. The more often he shifts, the more he hearkens back to his origins, the closer another presence feels. Like something on the other side of the pull he’s been feeling. Something offering him warmth.
His father’s truck still smells strongly of him. Kurt’s been carrying his burdens across the country, revisiting the lands he explored as a child. Maybe that’s the presence. If he closes his eyes and digs deep enough, sometimes he can pull forward a memory, hear his mother’s voice calling him back as he sets off dirtying his paws along a riverbank.
He misses the feeling of nipping at his father’s heels, of being part of something bigger. He used to dream about soulmates, theorize the existence of a perfect match. Once upon a time, he wanted one badly.
Purebloods are a rarity. Even nomadic wolves unwilling to live alongside humans accept turned wolves and half-breeds into their packs. If Kurt had paid closer attention, if he’d read the signs and subtle gestures, he’d have known what his parents were. Known himself.
Nothing marks purebloods as particularly special. All the perks – the sharp ear, nose, teeth, the speed, strength, and instincts – come indiscriminately as far as Kurt could ever tell. Only the rumor of soulmates sets them apart. But that’s always been just a rumor. Practically a myth.
It’s difficult to catch onto the nuances of a couple in love with no other basis for foundation, no points of reference. As a child, he couldn’t see what was so simple. Looking back, Kurt can see clearly the pieces of the puzzle he’d never figured to solve and its bigger picture.
The tug in his gut pulls at him again one night while he parked near a lake in the middle of the woods. He knows what it is now for certain. It scared him at first, but maybe this is the sign, the connection he’s been searching for. It feels as much a challenge as it does a source of comfort, and Kurt’s sense of adventure rouses at the call. Warmth again courses to the tips of his fingers and toes as he gazes upward and he’s starting again to see beauty in the simplicity of starlight.