ACITW AU Chapter 23C
So here we have the last third of chapter 23, which finishes out their first full day at the beach house :) Now for those of you who feel that my AU is a little light on the angst, worry not. I'm giving our boys a bit of a honeymoon period to figure out how they're going to fit together and form a relationship, but it'll get angsty soon enough ;)
Kurt watches Sebastian walk around the back of the Mustang on his way to the driver’s side door, and the second he opens it, Kurt starts in on him again.
“Did you ever stop to think what would happen if you got stung?” Kurt asks, his voice rising with concern. He knows he should dial down the crazy. After all, for whatever reason Sebastian may have had for bringing Kurt here, he tried to plan a perfect day for them, and Kurt doesn’t want this one revelation to ruin the rest of it, but Kurt can’t help feeling that it was irresponsible of Sebastian to put his life at risk like this.
“Yeah,” Sebastian mutters, sounding slightly irritated. “It’s not like I haven’t been allergic to bees my whole life. Whatever would we have done?”
Sebastian sinks down into the car seat and slams the door shut. He wraps his fingers around the steering and squeezes it tight, though Kurt thinks it looks more like he’s throttling the poor thing.
“Where to now, Evil Knievel?” Kurt scoffs. “Cliff diving? Bungee jumping? I mean, since we’re obviously showing no regard for life and limb today.”
Sebastian’s stomach answers for him, growling loudly and catching Kurt off-guard in the middle of his rant. Kurt laughs, not really meaning to, until his own stomach joins in the conversation.
Sebastian relaxes his death-grip on the steering wheel and smiles.
“Well, if you’re done with the atomic bitch-fest, I take it that’s two votes for lunch,” Sebastian says. “Unless there are any other objections.”
“Not…at…all.” Kurt sighs in relief. “I had a great time, but right now, I would like to be anywhere else.” Sebastian groans at the well-worn pun and Kurt grins, turning his head in all directions to get a good look around. “But, currently we’re in the middle of not-so-scenic nowhere.”
Sebastian turns the key in the ignition and revs the engine.
“If I remember correctly, there’s a place not too far from here actually.”
“Thank God!” Kurt blows a kiss to the small roadside stand and the hive spattered gardens of the Busy Bee. “Be gone!” he crows. “Be seeing you! We won’t be back!”
“Okay, Kurt,” Sebastian deadpans, concentrating on doing a U-turn without spinning out in the loose dirt. “You can stop any time.” Sebastian lets the tires burn on the gravel road for a second before they peel out onto the asphalt and leave the bee farm far behind.
***
Sebastian’s memory is infallible. The tiny outdoor café he finds is only a hop, skip and a jump away. They literally could have walked the distance. Kurt’s eyes go wide when he sees it, letting the reality of it sink in fully before he breaks down, laughing uncontrollably at the look on Sebastian’s face as they pull into the parking lot of The Busy Bee Café - the same cartoonish bee adorning the overhanging awning, the same rustic-looking wood signs along the main road, each one cheerily adorned with the dread-inducing statement, “Last food stop for fifty miles”.
“So, can I punch you now?” Kurt asks. Sebastian stays dangerously silent, responding by shoving Kurt on the shoulder.
“If I drive at a hundred the whole way, we might be able to find something else in less than half an hour,” Sebastian reasons out loud, putting the car in reverse.
“No,” Kurt whines, tugging on Sebastian’s arm, “I’m starving! And I don’t remember us passing anything along the way, so please…”
“Alright, alright.” Sebastian relents, putting the Mustang back into park. “Just…stop making that obnoxious noise with your mouth.”
To Kurt’s surprise, the purveyors of The Busy Bee Café put quite a bit of thought into their overall curb appeal. The whimsical eatery has all of the same unsophisticated charm that the adjoining farm did. A simple, uncomplicated barn-themed structure houses the kitchen and a spacious indoor eating area. Even hailing from rural Ohio, Kurt considers himself a man of upscale, sophisticated design tastes, but Kurt has to admire the choice of black iron Bistro-style tables complimented with unpretentious, clear globe vases, each filled with a handful of fresh wildflowers bound with raffia. The picnic tables outside are their own unique works of art, but they still manage to tie together a unified theme. Each one had been washed in a coat of yellow or white paint, meticulously decorated with vines of colorful flowers traveling in swirl patterns up the legs and scrolling over the seats and table tops. The flowers and vines serve as frames for quotes, a different one for each table, and eclectic in their selection - some from the Bible, some from literature, some lyrics from songs.
The food on the menu is a perfect match to the overall atmosphere; traditional Americana with a Southern flair, and everything served with a generous side of biscuits and honey.
Even with the adorable shabby chic décor of the indoor café, Kurt convinces Sebastian to eat their meal outdoors. Luckily, there is no shortage of tress and the temperature is a good twenty degrees cooler in the shade.
“You know, all in all, I think we’re two for two as far as restaurants go,” Kurt says, picking through the various leaves of his indulgent peach, chicken, and pecan salad; lining up each ingredient on the tines of his fork in order to insure the perfect bite. Sebastian watches Kurt’s ritual with an amused smirk as he devours his own BLT with much less ceremony. “But if we keep this up, I think I’m going to go up a size.”
“I’m sure we can figure out a way to work it off,” Sebastian drawls suggestively. Kurt stares at Sebastian, condescension written on the smooth planes of his face.
“That wasn’t very original,” Kurt remarks, returning to his salad. “Are you tired, or are you losing your touch?”
“Fine,” Sebastian says, any trace of lurid suggestion gone from his voice. “I promise we’ll be eating nothing but boiled leek soup from here on out.”
Kurt’s smile blooms slowly, but he doesn’t look up from his salad to meet Sebastian’s playful green eyes. Instead he has become captivated by the quote that embellishes the table top where they sit. Painted in brown, each letter given depth with a slight shadow of beige, flowing effortlessly back and forth between the wooden slats of the table top are the words: “Every little thing wants to be loved.”
Kurt can’t imagine a more appropriate quote, considering the circumstances. So often Kurt had assumed that Sebastian knew nothing about being in love; too hard-hearted and too much of a cynic for paltry things like love to be of any importance to him, but never once did he consider that maybe Sebastian wanted to learn. At times, especially when Sebastian saw Blaine’s text messages on Kurt’s phone, when he tore Blaine apart for leaving Kurt behind and using the enormity of his love as an excuse, what Sebastian knew or wanted seemed irrelevant. In the end, what did Kurt really know about love? How could he claim to have some intrinsic knowledge on the subject when he couldn’t see Blaine’s plan for what it was - idiotic?
Wasn’t it Sebastian who pointed that out to him; calling Blaine out for his stupidity?
Maybe Sebastian knows more about being in love than Kurt gives him credit for; an aspect of his own that Sebastian can teach Kurt if given the chance. An undercurrent of warmth at the thought of learning how to love Sebastian wraps around Kurt’s spine as he recalls all the kisses, all the touches, all the moments of jealousy and the significant looks they’ve shared, each one carrying with it a thread of deeper meaning, unexpressed and woefully undervalued, that Kurt longs to unearth and experience fully.
An errant car speeding by on the otherwise deserted road draws Kurt back from the silence. He eases out of his thoughts, gaze lifting to see Sebastian looking pensively at the quote on the table top, too; his eyes following along the words, tracing over them one at a time. Sebastian’s look of intense concentration intrigues Kurt, but just when Kurt expects Sebastian to make some sort of erudite observation, instead he huffs a short, annoyed laugh.
“What is it?” Kurt asks, feeling offended on behalf of the quote that has found a special place in his heart.
“That quote is from the book The Secret Life of Bees,” Sebastian clarifies, shaking his head and finishing off the last of his sandwich. “We’re not going to get away from those little motherfuckers, are we?”
Kurt rolls his eyes even though he’s inclined to agree, tucking into the rest of his salad while Sebastian starts tearing apart chunks of one biscuit and dipping it in the thick amber pool of wildflower honey.
“Do you think we ran into the guys that made this batch?” Sebastian ponders, and Kurt snickers at the ridiculous statement. Sebastian pops the saturated portion in his mouth, but not quick enough to catch a few drops that miss his mouth and land on the contour of his lip, threatening to drip down his chin. Kurt stops and stares as the lingering drop goes unnoticed and another piece of biscuit follows the first. After the third bite, Sebastian catches Kurt staring. His eyes shift left to right and an absurd smile lifts his lips.
“What?” Sebastian asks, his voice muffled around a mouthful of half-chewed biscuit, but at least he’s decent enough to put a hand up over his mouth to lessen the gross factor of talking with his mouth full.
“N-nothing,” Kurt stutters, the edges of his lips lifting to form the hint of a smile, eyes twinkling in the subdued sunlight, and a single thought swirling through his mind like a Tilt-A-Whirl. The thought of how much he wants to lick that drop of honey off Sebastian’s skin. Kurt’s rational mind weighs his options carefully, second-guessing every step he wants to take. He’s eager to shift gears, be bold, jump in and take the first step. He needs to find a way to show Sebastian that he wants to move forward. They have already crossed so many different lines during the course of their ‘fake’ relationship, others blurring to the point that they’ve dissolved entirely. He doesn’t want to cycle all the way back to the beginning, ironically, as they try to take things to the next level.
As this inner debate continues to run its course, Kurt starts to move, climbing catlike across the table, thoughts flipping back to their lunch in Virginia, thumbing through the memory till it lands on the image of Sebastian wiping the mustard from Kurt’s face; the light brush of his thumb grazing the corner of Kurt’s mouth, the way it lingered, tracing down his cheek, and that look on Sebastian’s face after, the one that told Kurt that Sebastian is as uncertain about stepping into this new territory as he is.
Kurt doesn’t want to be stuck in the mire of uncertainty anymore. So much of his life seems up in the air, balancing precariously like plates spinning on sticks with him at the bottom frantically trying to keep them aloft, but bracing for the inevitable fall. Sebastian is the one thing right now that Kurt wants to be absolutely sure of.
Taking a cue from the memory replaying in his head, he reaches out his hand and with a finger he’s fighting to keep steady, collects the drip of honey from off Sebastian’s lip. Sebastian swallows hard at the first touch of Kurt’s fingertip against his skin, his tongue sweeping over his lip slowly, as if chasing Kurt’s finger.
Time suspends them in this discreet patch of dappled shade with Kurt poised in front of Sebastian, his finger hovering in the air. Without thinking, Kurt sticks the finger in his mouth and sucks off the drop of honey, eliciting a moan from Sebastian that definitely doesn’t sound uncertain or unsure. Sebastian’s green eyes go dark, glued to Kurt’s mouth, mesmerized by the way his lips surround his finger, the subtle movement of his jaw, the way his cheeks hollow.
“Do you think you got it all?” Sebastian asks, his voice rough and shuddering ever so slightly.
Kurt slips his finger from his mouth and appraises Sebastian’s face thoughtfully, biting his lip and tilting his head, preparing for his next move.
“You know, I think I’d better make sure.”
It takes less than a second to decide; after all of Kurt’s hedging, kissing Sebastian turns out to be easy; easy as breathing and bending and meeting each other half way. They don’t simply touch when they kiss; they connect, but it’s different from this morning’s kiss on the beach. The fire between them doesn’t ignite during this kiss. It’s unhurried, relaxed; it simmers, content to flow and carry them along wherever it goes. Even when Kurt’s tongue licks along the seam of Sebastian’s mouth, wiping the rest of the honey away, and Sebastian leans forward, resting a hand at the base of Kurt’s neck, rubbing at the knot in his spine with his thumb, Kurt decides not to take the kiss further. He leaves this kiss to worm its way inside Sebastian’s brain and take root so that he wants more…so that he has to think about what exactly ‘more’ might mean.
Kurt pulls away, pecking one last, chaste kiss over Sebastian’s chin before retreating back to his side of the table.
Sebastian’s eyes are still closed when Kurt sits on the bench, and right before he opens them, he runs his tongue over his lower lip, revisiting the spot where Kurt’s tongue had been.
“What was that?” Sebastian asks, inhaling suddenly as if he forgot how to breathe and only remembered again now.
Kurt has an idea in his head, that maybe Sebastian can consider it an invitation, but he doesn’t have enough courage to voice it out loud.
Where is a bottle of tequila when you need it?
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Kurt replies with a shrug, busying himself with piling his plastic fork and knife into the plastic deli container that had contained his salad. Sebastian watches him through narrow eyelids, chewing around a thought, his lips curling into his patented, devious smirk.
“I think I’ll take it as our cue to leave,” Sebastian says, hopping off his bench and gathering up the trash from the table. Kurt eyes him as he tosses their garbage away and then immediately heads off in the direction of the Mustang, spinning around in a half-circle once to make sure Kurt follows. Kurt smiles and stands up from the bench to join him. He takes once last look at the quote on the table, running the flat of his hand over the painted words, setting them to memory.
“Every little thing wants to be loved.”
***
Kurt doesn’t know when it happens. One minute he’s sitting in the Mustang, staring out the window as they speed back to the coast, singing along with Sebastian to the Scissor Sisters ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’, occasionally cut off by a persistent yawn that refuses to be squashed. He blinks to banish the dust and lubricate his dry eyes. He blinks once, twice, but the next time he blinks they are back at the beach house, pulling into the carport. An hour flew by completely unnoticed, and even though he recognizes that he must have really needed the sleep if he fell out so completely, he regrets not spending that time talking and singing; he regrets missing the opportunity to find out more about Sebastian in those covert ways in which he discloses his secrets. If their hapless adventure this afternoon has proven anything to Kurt, it’s that he knows practically nothing about this boy he’s fallen so hard for.
All this time they have spent in each other’s company and Kurt never knew Sebastian had a life-threatening allergy? That seems like the kind of information a friend - not to mention a “boyfriend” - would know.
Kurt considers the things that time and familiarity usually reveal during the course of a relationship.
Out of the impressive collection of tomes he surrounds himself with, which one is Sebastian’s favorite?
Fuck…how about his favorite color? Favorite food? Favorite movie? Favorite subject in school?
What about his plans for the future; a future that is barreling toward them full-speed ahead?
But Kurt doesn’t want to dwell on the heavy right now, not when Sebastian’s looking over at him with a grin that says he’s thinking of a million ways to tease one seriously bedraggled Kurt Hummel.
“Wh-what the hell happened?” Kurt groans, his throat parched, his voice gravelly.
“You fell asleep,” Sebastian says smoothly, killing the engine and pocketing the keys. “Incidentally, you snore like a tractor.”
Kurt sits up quickly, jaw dropping to his knees.
“Take that back!” Kurt gasps.
“Can’t.” Sebastian opens the car door, turning his head to look over his shoulder at Kurt. “It’s truth time.”
Kurt opens his door and follows suit, chasing after Sebastian, bent on vengeance, but he’s derailed mid-jab by another matter of the utmost importance - the potential of another morning without his obligatory first cup of coffee.
“Fuck!” Kurt exclaims, throwing an exasperated hand to his face and rubbing his tired eyes with the heel of his palm.
“Here?” Sebastian quips back quickly, raising an interested eyebrow. Kurt doesn’t comment back, deciding to let Sebastian have this win. Even he has to admit he walked into that one, but Sebastian’s roguish expression has him seriously considering rising to the challenge. What exactly would Sebastian do if Kurt sashayed over to him, eyes brimming with unrestrained desire, tore off his clothes and leapt into his arms? But Kurt reconsiders. The floor of the carport looks hard and uncomfortable.
“No,” Kurt grouses. “We forgot to stop at the supermarket, and I’m not exactly looking forward to oyster cracker and easy cheese soufflé for dinner.”
“Well, actually, I have an idea.” Sebastian’s voice drops, taking on a low, silky quality; the easy twist from playful to something akin to seduction sends chills over Kurt, spiraling around him, burying deep into his stomach, pooling with heat. Sebastian advances on Kurt, trapping him in the allure of whatever promise lies hidden behind his grass-green eyes.
Maybe Kurt’s invitation in that kiss earlier came through louder than he thought.
Would Sebastian really take him up on it?
“Yeah?” Kurt asks lamely, but when Sebastian looks at him with that mysterious dark gaze, Kurt’s mind goes blank. Kurt’s body yearns for him, and he is dying to know how long Sebastian intends on making him wait.
The cold cement wall hits Kurt’s shoulders as he backs into it, and he swears he hears his heated skin hiss with the contact.
“What’s your idea?”
Kurt wants to cringe at his sudden inability to come up with any witty or even slightly provocative banter, but he doesn’t care, because Sebastian is standing so close, crowding in against him, every blessed square inch of their bodies pressed together, and his lips are hovering so near. A lean, a slight incline is all it would take…
“I want you, Kurt Hummel,” Sebastian whispers, and Kurt, his eyes fluttering closed, waiting for this kiss that promises to burn, misses how Sebastian’s lips begin to curl, “to dig for clams.”
A thin, cold, and metal object drops into Kurt’s hand, dangling off his fingertips. His eyes snap open, his fingers folding reflexively around something that feels suspiciously like a wire, and he’s torn between an urge to throttle Sebastian for goading him so cruelly, or hanging himself for falling for it so damned hard.
***
“So, what exactly are we doing?” Kurt calls as he trails after Sebastian, metal bucket in hand, hopping over jutting stones and cursing every time the soft underside of his foot comes in contact with a sharp and pitted rock, saving himself from falling on his ass several times when his heel hits random patches of slimy lichens. He stops on a fairly stable plateau overlooking the oncoming white-caps of the splashing surf to roll up the cuffs of his pants. These might not be the most stylish clothes, but he’s going to do his best not to completely ruin them. Kurt hurries to catch up when he sees how far ahead Sebastian has gotten, frowning that he didn’t stop to wait and trying hard not to be impressed at how comfortable he is leaping from one dicey-looking rock to the other.
“We’re going to find some mud flats,” Sebastian calls over his shoulder, unwilling to break his stride, “and dig the clams up. It’s pretty self-explanatory.” Sebastian only stops when he hears Kurt’s squeal of distress, racing back in time to rescue him as he slips, teetering on the edge of a narrow ledge that’s being pounded mercilessly by the surf, and almost falling headlong into the ocean.
“Fuck, Kurt!” Sebastian yells at first, taking a long breath in as he steadies himself with Kurt bracing against him for dear life. Kurt waits, sure some angry insult is going to follow, some comment about how clumsy he is, but Sebastian sighs through clenched teeth, and Kurt knows he’s trying.
“Careful there, babe,” Sebastian says instead with barely the ghost of his original frustration evident in his voice. “I don’t need you washing away with the tide.” Sebastian sets Kurt upright on the rock beside him, holding Kurt’s hips securely until he is sure that Kurt can stand on his own. “That happens to be our one and only bucket.” Kurt sneers as Sebastian starts again on his rampant pace, but doesn’t miss how Sebastian keeps their hands locked.
After close to thirty minutes of leaping from rock to rock and dodging waves, Kurt considers asking if they’re going to walk the entire length of the Atlantic coast. They’re a good distance from the beach house. Kurt looks back over his shoulder and can barely see it on the dune where it sits overlooking the ocean. Sebastian stops suddenly and it’s all Kurt can do to keep from slamming into him and tipping them both into the water. Sebastian looks down from the shelf of rock where they stand and nods to himself.
“Here.” Sebastian reaches into the pockets of the board shorts he had changed into before they left on this shellfish scavenger hunt, pulls out two balled-up pairs of white tube socks, hands one pair to Kurt and keeps the second pair for himself. “Put those on.”
“So, that’s what you had in there?” Kurt asks, unrolling the socks and looking them over quizzically. “And I thought you were just excited to see me.”
“When I’m excited to see you, Hummel, you’ll know,” Sebastian says with a quick, lust-filled glance down Kurt’s body that makes Kurt’s face flame red. Sebastian balances on one foot as he pulls on a sock, glancing up at Kurt when he notices his reluctance to move.
“Babe, you’re really going to want to put those on,” Sebastian urges, finishing with his second sock.
“But, they’re going to get all soaked and mucky,” Kurt grumbles, starting to slip the first sock over his sandy foot with a grimace.
“Better than getting the bottom of your feet torn to shreds.” Sebastian dusts his hands off on his shorts. “Some of those clam shells are razor sharp.”
Kurt has a hard time visualizing the bottoms of his feet getting any more torn up than they already are, but he eventually gives in. Sebastian undeniably knows what he’s doing, and it would suck if Kurt couldn’t walk for the rest of their vacation. He can’t picture Sebastian catering to a wounded Kurt, especially if he obtained his injuries due to his own stubbornness.
“Ugh,” Kurt mewls when he puts his sock-clad foot down into a puddle of glop. “Couldn’t we have just gone to the store?”
“Stop complaining, princess,” Sebastian chides, but this time the nickname that Kurt has always detested sounds endearing. “It’s not all that bad. Clams taste a lot better when you pull them out of the sand with you own hands. Besides…” Sebastian jumps down into the mud below with a wet slap as his feet hit the surface of the thick brown goop, “I have a feeling I’m going to really enjoy watching you do this.”
Sebastian eyeballs Kurt with a mischievous grin, but Kurt, dubious at the prospect of tromping knee-deep in something that looks like toxic sludge, makes no move to join him.
“So, are you coming, Kurt? These clams aren’t going to leap into our bucket on their own.”
“I don’t want to,” Kurt says quietly, taking a step back, holding tight to the bucket handle with both hands.
“Kurt,” Sebastian runs a sandy hand through his hair, apparently beyond caring what kind of wreck he looks like, (though he still manages, to Kurt’s despair, to look like an exquisitely handsome mess regardless). “The stuff down here is the same stuff you’re standing in up there.”
“Yeah, but it’s shallow up here,” Kurt gripes. “Look! You’re sinking up to your knees!”
Sebastian shakes his head, sparing a glance down at the mud that he is currently sinking into. He bends down and grabs a handful of mud, moving through the dense substance to get to where an obstinate Kurt stays attached to the safety of his ledge. He brings the handful of mud down on Kurt’s legs, smoothing the gritty gunk over his skin.
“No! Sebastian!” Kurt yelps. He steps back quickly to get out of arm’s reach and slips again, this time falling backwards, feet flying out from under him, and landing on his tailbone in a puddle, splashing his clothes and his skin. Sebastian’s accompanying laugh only adds insult to injury as Kurt looks down his body with disgust.
“See,” Sebastian chokes out, “now you don’t have an excuse.”
Kurt tosses the bucket blindly in Sebastian’s direction and growls in aggravation when he hears it bypass Sebastian’s head and land in the mud.
“Thanks, babe!” Sebastian chortles. “But I’m not starting till you get your ass down here.”
Kurt feels his hackles start to rise. He wants to fume, the pull himself out of the mud and stomp back the way they came, not that he could figure out the route without Sebastian’s help, unfortunately, but he can’t, because even though Sebastian is laughing at him, it’s that genuine, disarming laugh that Kurt is finding harder and harder to resist. And when he takes a moment to think about it, his predicament is kind of funny. If Sebastian were sitting in a puddle with his ass soaking up mud, Kurt would have a field day. Kurt hears a sickening sound like a spoon being dragged through old, coagulated oatmeal. He looks between his legs and sees Sebastian hoisting his body up onto the rock, an unexpected expression of concern on his face.
“Jesus, Kurt, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? Can’t you get up?” The barrage of questions catches Kurt unaware so he passes up on a golden opportunity to ham his injury up for all its worth.
“I’m fine,” Kurt says, pushing off his elbows and letting Sebastian help him to his feet. “You don’t have to be such a mother hen. I’m not a child, you know.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t know it by the way you’re acting,” Sebastian bites. “It’s just a little mud, Kurt. I’m trying to have some fun here. You remember what fun is?”
“Well, mud may be fun for you, pigs, and toddlers, but it’s not exactly my cup of tea.” Kurt runs his hands over his body in a fruitless attempt to sweep the drying crud off his clothes.
“Don’t bother.” Sebastian grabs Kurt’s hand and drags him back to the edge. “If we’re going to eat at all tonight, you’re going to have to get a lot dirtier than that.” This time, Sebastian holds on to Kurt’s hand when he makes the leap off the ledge, bringing a protesting and cursing Kurt along with him for the ride. Sebastian lands flawlessly on his feet, but Kurt lands on his knees, sending generous huge droplets soaring all over, dousing his face, his hair, and his clothes, which he has long since lost hope of saving. With any luck, Fall-Out Boy will perform in a venue Kurt can get to soon so he can replace Puck’s shirt.
“Now feel around with your feet and find us some clams,” Sebastian says, reclaiming the bucket from where he left it and shuffling away. Kurt struggles to stand upright with his legs stuck in slop.
“You have got to be kidding,” Kurt mumbles, but he decides to buck up and suffer through since the sooner he finds these stupid clams the sooner they’ll climb out of this repugnant morass and head back to the house. He skates around trying to find mollusks with his feet - a situation Kurt Hummel would have never dreamed in a million years he would find himself in. He feels around in the sand and from the corner of his eye he sees Sebastian, arms outstretched for balance, a sentimental smile on his face. Kurt tries to imagine Sebastian out here on vacation with his family doing this exact same thing. He pictures Julian trying to wrestle Sebastian into the mud while Olivia screams for them to stop…or more than likely cheers them on, eager to side with the winner in making the loser’s night miserable. Kurt chuckles to himself realizing he’ll probably find out how true to life that scenario is when everyone else gets there.
He can hardly wait.
“Clam,” Sebastian calls, and Kurt hears a loud clunk in the metal bucket. “Come on, Hummel. I’ve got three already and you’ve found nada. Stop daydreaming and help!”
Kurt scowls, but pads around with his feet in the soft ground in search of something hard. He hits one and bends down, glowering as he sinks his hands into the mud, grabbing the object and pulling it up, fighting with the sand that’s hell bent on keeping this clam for itself. Kurt plucks it free, crying out in victory, clearing away the mud to look at his prize.
He frowns when he realizes what he’s found instead.
“I have a rock,” Kurt grumbles, tossing it aside.
“Clam,” Sebastian calls in the meantime, sounding excessively pleased.
Kurt searches around and hits upon another hard object. He plunges ahead, grabbing and quickly yanking up the hard ovoid.
“I have a…nother rock.”
“Clam!” Another metallic clank follows.
“Rock…”
“Clam!”
Clunk.
“Rock!”
“Clam!”
Clunk.
“ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKING ROCK!”
“Clam!”
Sebastian can barely get the word out as he walks over to the bucket, and snickering, drops his eighth clam in.
“What the hell!” Kurt turns, seeing Sebastian’s smug face and tosses a handful of mud his way, which Sebastian doesn’t dodge nearly quick enough. “When did I become Charlie Brown! I’m getting all the gall-darned rocks.”
“Gall-darned?” Sebastian chuckles. “Really?”
“Just…help me with this! Please! So I don’t go back to the house thinking I got covered in filth for nothing.”
Sebastian sighs, his eyes still shimmering with tears from laughing so hard, but he takes pity on Kurt and decides to show him the finer points of digging for clams. Kurt watches Sebastian move around the mud, feeling with his feet in the dense muck. He stops in a spot and his eyebrows shoot up.
“Okay,” Sebastian says, holding out his arms and beckoning for Kurt to join him. “Come here and feel this.”
Kurt rolls his eyes and trudges over to join Sebastian, pressing the ground with his foot till he finds Sebastian’s foot, and then feels for the hard object he is standing on.
“Do you feel that?” Sebastian asks.
Kurt nods.
“Can you feel the ridges and the ribs? How it’s not completely smooth?”
Kurt nods again.
“Go ahead and dig that up.”
Kurt bends over, his hip rubbing against Sebastian’s legs as he reaches into the mud to find the hard lump they’ve been standing on. He misses the way Sebastian shifts, the way he groans softly, caring only about the first clam he has ever dug up. Kurt pulls the creature out and raises it triumphantly in the air, spattering them both with a spray of dirt.
“I got one!” he cheers.
“That…that’s great, Kurt,” Sebastian says, his voice sounding tight as he moves to a different area of the mud flat to go back to fishing out clams. “Now, get about twenty more of those, and we’ll be ready to go.”
“Twenty!” Kurt groans. “Ugh!”
“Yup,” Sebastian says with a strange, eerie cheerfulness. “And I forgot to mention…the person who finds the least carries the bucket back to the house.”
***
Kurt groans, complaining loudly as he lugs the bucket along the rocks, grasping the handle in both hands and hoisting it in front of him, using his body for support and leverage. He has to stop every half a minute or so to put it down, his hands stinging and red after only ten minutes.
Kurt never quite makes it to twenty. The tide comes in hard and fast, flushing the boys back up onto the rocks, but Kurt is proud of the ten or so he did manage to find, his competitive diva side trying not to acknowledge that Sebastian found nearly three times as many, if not more.
But the proof is in the pudding as Sebastian bounds ahead and Kurt flails behind, burdened by their dinner.
“What do we do with these guys now?” Kurt says, trying to distract himself from the weight and the pain with light-hearted conversation, flinching when the metal cuts into his skin. Sebastian turns around when he hears Kurt’s question, and comes to a full stop when he sees him limping along. He sighs, walking back along the trail to reach him, putting a hand on his arm to stop him, and sets the bucket down. Sebastian takes off his socks, ringing out as much of the mud and water as he can. He takes Kurt’s hand and wraps one sock around it, then does the same to his own hand.
“You get one side,” Sebastian instructs, “I’ll get the other. And try not to fall on your ass again and drop the bucket, please. I don’t relish the idea of going back and digging for clams in the dark at high tide.”
“So, you don’t mind losing me at sea,” Kurt says, finding it hard to be too upset when Sebastian is helping him without being asked, “but the clams…the clams we have to keep safe!?”
“Priorities, babe,” Sebastian says with a wink, picking up his side of the bucket and pulling Kurt along in tow as he holds onto the other. “Right now I’m so hungry I’m pretty sure I can polish off this whole bucket by myself. Besides…you’d float.”
“You still didn’t answer my question,” Kurt says, stumbling to keep up, focusing on shadowing Sebastian’s footsteps on the rocks and not on the way the muscles of his arm bulges and shifts under the weight of the bucket. Kurt is amazed to see Sebastian like this; a hunter-gatherer, getting his hands dirty and doing this kind of manual labor, such a bizarre juxtaposition to the Sebastian Smythe who lives on a million dollar estate, who spent time abroad and attended an expensive private school. Kurt is finding this rough and rugged side a tremendous turn on, and not just because of the emphasis on Sebastian’s physical beauty. There’s something to be said about a man with money who doesn’t just snap his fingers and make things appear.
There’s no doubt in Kurt’s mind that Sebastian could have called any number of stores or restaurants within a twenty mile radius and had something delivered, but digging for clams is about more than just dinner. It’s about spending time together, about sharing a part of himself with Kurt…and to a degree, probably about getting Kurt filthy and making him look like an ass.
“When I was changing into my board shorts I took another look around…” Sebastian stops and readjusts, and Kurt takes the opportunity to do the same. “I found a box of pasta and a bottle of white wine, so I’m thinking we steam them, and serve them over spaghetti.”
Kurt cannot help but be skeptical about Sebastian’s ability to cook competently after the great French toast fiasco of just a few days ago, but it doesn’t sound too complicated. His mouth salivates to the point of drooling at the sound of clams steamed in white wine, and he tries his best to walk faster.
They make it back to the beach house as the sun dips down below the horizon, lighting up the sky in a brilliant array of champagne pink and pale gold, the blue ocean darkening to nearly a solid indigo when Kurt turns to look at it again from one of the stalls of the outdoor showers. They wash off quickly to avoid trailing mud in the house, trying to ignore the way their shoulders bump together under the lukewarm water while they rinse the clams, though Kurt’s eyes might linger a bit on the way Sebastian’s tan skin contrasts against his own alabaster complexion beneath the spray. Maybe his breathing speeds up with the thought of Sebastian’s hands running along his wet skin, his heart thrumming with the image of them sharing lazy kisses; gentle, leisurely, unrushed, spending all the time in the world lavishing attention on each other.
Kurt wishes he knew what it would take to convince Sebastian to join him in a shower. (Tomorrow, Kurt might learn to be careful what he wishes for.)
Kurt feels the night breeze prickle over his skin and only then becomes aware that the shower of water has stopped. His eyes drift up and he sees Sebastian staring down at him, his eyes hooded, bordering in the neighborhood of something breathless and raw, but now is not the time to explore it.
By the time they make it to the kitchen, Kurt doesn’t feel like he’s carrying a bucket filled with just clams, but the beach, the ocean, the sunset, an entire hive of bees pregnant with honey, and Sebastian - the smile that touches his eyes, his genuine laugh, and his kisses…so many awe-inspiring kisses.
“Geez, princess,” Sebastian grunts the final few steps. “You must have gotten way too much sun. You look positively loopy.” Sebastian pulls the bucket out of Kurt’s hands and sets it on the kitchen island, and Kurt realizes he has a huge, goofy smile on his face. “Why don’t you hop in a shower and I’ll get this started.”
“Are you sure?” Kurt asks, already heading for the bathroom. Sebastian shakes his head as he watches Kurt disappear down the hall.
“Don’t…stop…come back…” Sebastian murmurs, smiling as he pulls down a large pot from the cabinet and fills it with water.
***
Kurt strips off the grimy clothes and sets them carefully over the tub, at this point wondering why he even bothers since they are positively ruined. He looks at his naked body in the mirror, scrunching his nose at the layer of gunge that still clings to him despite their quick rinse. His eyes fall on the various bottles of his skin care regimen lined up neatly on the sink beside bottles of product he assumes are Sebastian’s. He smiles, walking his fingertips from bottle to bottle. It all seems so startling domestic that for a moment Kurt freezes, stupefied by the notion that so much of who they are can blend so seamlessly. Kurt intersperses the bottles, creating a pattern of his-mine-his-mine-his-mine until the perfectly sized row of Clinique-Neutrogena-Dior represent what Kurt is aiming for - us.
Kurt sets the temperature level to scalding in an effort to melt away the scum, kind of like dry cleaning without the Martinizing. He leans against the cool, powder blue tile and watches the remains of the day slide off his skin - dust, sand, and sweat pool in the water around his feet before spiraling down the drain. He scrubs his skin twice to get rid of the mud and glares at the presence of a few new freckles he’s seemed to inherit along the way, hoping that his precious miracle serum from the Dior Snow line will take care of them for him.
Kurt stays in the shower longer than he plans, inspecting every inch of his skin obsessively for residual mud, sand, and God knows whatever else might have been lurking in the quagmire they trekked knee deep in. When he finally gets out and dries off, he notices that a couple of the bottles on the sink have gone missing and his knees go weak at the thought of Sebastian stepping into the bathroom while he was showering to retrieve them.
He returns to the kitchen, half-expecting to see every pot, pan, and plate stacked in the sink, with the addition of some food item scorched beyond repair, pasta hanging from the ceiling, and the poor clams trying their best at making a break for freedom. Instead, Sebastian is adeptly plating their food, his hair wet, skin attractively flushed, wearing a similar white t-shirt and cotton sleep pants as they both wore the night before. Sebastian doesn’t look up when Kurt enters the room, but smirks as he goes about his work.
“I hijacked another bathroom,” Sebastian explains. “You took so long I was afraid you might have drowned, so I thought I’d give you another ten minutes.”
Kurt shakes his head and laughs.
“Thanks for your concern.”
Kurt hops up onto a bar stool and watches Sebastian pour a thin sauce from a pan over a plate of pasta piled high with opened clams.
“I have to admit I’m impressed,” Kurt concedes. “After your disastrous attempt at making breakfast, I thought for sure this might be out of your depth.”
“I’ve never had to make anyone breakfast before,” Sebastian says, and Kurt’s not sure why, but the comment grips a hold of his heart and twists. He knows he’s going to have to put any jealousy over Sebastian’s past conquests behind him if they’re going to forage ahead, but he didn’t expect any jokes about that now, not when they were here alone together.
“So, does that mean you’ve made dinner for somebody then?” Kurt asks. He means it as an answering taunt, but it comes out bitter and defensive.
Sebastian’s eyes are soft when they lift from the plate to look at him.
“Never,” he says, and it sounds reassuring and unerringly honest, so Kurt shelves his jealousy, reaching out to take the plate that Sebastian offers him.
“Come on.” Sebastian hands Kurt a bottle of water that he brought in from the trunk of the Mustang and a set of silverware, and carrying his own dinner plate and bottle of water, leads them into the living room. There’s a flat screen t.v. mounted to the wall, but the boys opt instead to sit in front of the picture windows with the lights turned low, watching the tide crash into the shore while they eat their dinner cross-legged on the floor, a selection from Rachmaninoff playing on a compact Bose stereo sitting in the corner, the music filling the room from tiny speakers stationed in different areas so that the sound comes at them from all around.
Kurt twirls his spaghetti delicately, conscious that even though Sebastian is making an effort to look disinterested and nonplussed that he’s watching Kurt, waiting to see his reaction. The first bite touches Kurt’s tongue and the flavors that fill his mouth are intense, fresh and sublime, somehow seeming to form a single taste that sums up their entire day. The dry white wine manages to hold on to its subtle sweetness beneath the salty tang of the clams that remind him heart and soul of his morning at the beach. It’s not just something for his taste buds to savor; it’s an honest to God emotion. Kurt decides then and there that he is going to hold on to Sebastian with both hands for as long as humanly possible since he has no intention of eating anything but this one dish for the rest of his life, even if it requires hours of combing through a bog every day at sunrise and sunset.
The sacrifice to Puck’s wardrobe might just be worth it.
Kurt closes his eyes to relish every bite, every slide of the pasta around his mouth, the last traces of alcohol firing along his tongue, the satisfying combination of flavors unveiled when the flesh of the clams explodes between his teeth. He sighs, opening his eyes, and sees Sebastian staring at him, his lips parted, his expression hungry, but possibly, Kurt would like to believe, for a much different reason than want of food.
“This actually borders on something close to romantic,” Kurt says, daintily twirling more spaghetti around his fork.
“Hey, now,” Sebastian says, mimicking offense. “You don’t know me, Kurt, alright. I’m romantic as fuck.”
Kurt laughs, bringing the pasta and seafood to his lips and taking a bite, chewing deliberately to give himself time to think. Kurt swallows and takes a sip of his water before he continues.
“You’re kind of right, though,” Kurt says, moving what’s left of his food in a path around his plate. “I don’t really know much about you, do I?”
Sebastian’s expression drops a bit, shifting to melancholy, and he shrugs.
“If that’s important to you…”
“It is,” Kurt interrupts, matching Sebastian’s look with one of his own, full of questions he wants to ask and misgivings that he wants to clear up, but mostly a confirmation that without a shadow of a doubt he is right where he wants to be.
“Okay.” Sebastian nods, looking conflicted, but he pushes it aside, standing and extending a hand to Kurt to help him up.
“Leave the plates,” he says. “We’ll get to them in the morning.”
Kurt is sure Charlotte wouldn’t approve of them leaving dirty plates on the living room floor to get dried out and crusty, but he decides not to mention it, seeing as they are headed to bed, and Sebastian is leading the way.
***
They separate to brush their teeth because no matter what Kurt will most likely never feel comfortable doing that in front of anyone. Preparing for bed in what he has affectionately labeled ‘the blue room’, Kurt’s sense of déjà vu switches into overdrive, except this time he’s even more nervous than he had been the night before. He doesn’t know why but he is starting to get the feeling that in this arena, where Sebastian should conceivably be able to take the lead, he seems more content to follow - for now at least, which puts Kurt in the position to lay out the boundaries.
Sebastian wants to take things slow, which gets harder now that all Kurt seems to want to do is speed things along.
They’re going to need to agree on a middle-ground.
Kissing? Yes.
Touching? Uh…somewhat…
Rutting? Still up in the air.
Kurt runs is hands through his hair and looks at himself in the mirror.
‘Just relax,’ he tells himself, ‘and let whatever happens happen.’
About eighteen more self-help slogans later, Kurt walks to the bedroom and finds Sebastian standing right where he was last night, in front of the windows looking out at the ocean, body still rigid, expression still unsure, and more than anything Kurt wants to find the key to breaking through that tension. This time when he shuts the door and Sebastian turns to look at him, Kurt runs headlong and leaps into the bed, sinking into the mattress and letting it bounce him back, the comforter wrapping around him end over end like a burrito.
“So, mud is for toddlers, but bouncing on the bed is perfectly acceptable adult behavior?” Sebastian’s voice has an edge of uneasiness, but Kurt’s stunt has the desired effect. He’s laughing and climbing into bed, grappling to get Kurt unwound from the blanket.
“Yup,” Kurt confirms, “because unlike mud, jumping on the bed won’t ruin my clothes.”
“Believe what you want to, babe,” and there he is. The suave, over-confident king of innuendo is back, and the atmosphere loosens up around them. Kurt rolls the comforter flat and climbs underneath on his side, while Sebastian crawls in on the other.
Sebastian lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, and Kurt lies on his side and watches him. In the silvery light of the waxing moon bathing the room, Kurt can see contemplation flicking through his thoughtful green eyes.
“What are you thinking?” Kurt asks.
Sebastian turns his head to face Kurt, looking almost surprised by the question.
“I was thinking…I don’t remember the last time…” Sebastian sighs with frustration, as if nothing he can think of to say is good enough. “I’ve never spent a day like that with someone before. I liked it.”
Kurt bites his lip and nods, a strange sensation of pride flourishing within him that he doesn’t feel right to owning up to out loud.
“What are you thinking?” Sebastian reciprocates with a sly smile, and Kurt decides that this moment, this peaceful, laid back, light-hearted moment is as good as any to make his move.
“I was thinking that I’d like to touch you,” Kurt says, and Sebastian’s smile morphs from his usually smug façade to sincerely dumbstruck. “Actually, I’ve been kind of thinking about it all day.”
Kurt doesn’t give Sebastian time to object or himself a reason to second-guess. He reaches across the invisible boundary that seems to divide them, grabs a handful of Sebastian’s shirt below the collar, and tugs towards him lightly. Sebastian follows, rolling onto his side and then getting up on his hands and knees. Kurt shifts to move beneath him, putting Sebastian in a better position to hover over his body.
Kurt watches all the conflicting emotions play over Sebastian’s face as their eyes meet, and it seems logical that every step from here on out should be natural.
“Do you want to kiss me?” Kurt asks, curious where all this confidence is coming from all of a sudden; excessively glad that it doesn’t have to come from a bottle.
Sebastian tilts his head, eyes focusing on Kurt’s mouth more than his eyes.
“Pretty much all the time,” he whispers.
“Then why don’t you do it more?”
Kurt means it as a friendly jab, not even a serious question. He doesn’t really want an answer; it’s simply a way to let Sebastian know that he has permission, blanket permission, to lay claim to Kurt’s lips whenever and wherever he wants. But it stops Sebastian in his tracks, and he pulls away a bit.
Kurt watches Sebastian fluster, stumble over ideas and thoughts, trying to pinpoint just the right one, and suddenly Kurt is charmed all over again. This brilliant boy who loves books, who reads and digests and savors each one, can borrow any number of words, select from a bevy of quotes and expressions to fit his current emotion, and if he did, Kurt knows he would most definitely swoon. He considers telling Sebastian that, but he can’t, because Kurt can tell from the slightly pained look on Sebastian’s face that the words he’s struggling over are his own; he has ownership of the ideas he longs to express. Kurt can’t take that away from him. He’ll sit patiently and wait.
“I like that I get to touch you,” Kurt confesses, intervening, relieving Sebastian of the burden to come up with an answer to his rhetorical question.
“I like you touching me,” Sebastian says through a shy smile.
Kurt slips his hands beneath Sebastian’s shirt, running them up his back, fingers dancing along his spine, and Sebastian starts to uncoil. Kurt can feel it; tendrils of apprehension siphoning away beneath his fingertips. Sebastian’s eyelids close as he absorbs Kurt’s touch, sinking down slowly to get closer to Kurt’s body, until he’s supporting his weight on his elbows, resting his forehead against Kurt’s, rubbing his nose gently against Kurt’s, lips barely brushing.
Kurt’s hands follow Sebastian’s spine back down to his hips and in a fluid motion that begs no permission, slips beneath the waistband of his pants to palm boldly over the smooth skin of his ass.
“Oh, Kurt,” he sighs in a single, broken breath that fills Kurt with an overwhelming desire to hear more of it. He reaches further, fingertips brushing the backs of Sebastian’s thighs. Sebastian drops his head down the short distance and kisses him, and the hunger from earlier, from all the times Kurt caught Sebastian watching him, resurfaces. It’s possessive, unrestrained, spurred on by the brazen journey of Kurt’s hands as they close in around Sebastian’s hips and pull his body down further so that Sebastian can feel him, feel the way he reacts to Sebastian’s body. Kurt’s hands fit into the sway of Sebastian’s back, in that curve where his hips join the swell of his ass, and he pins Sebastian against him, rolling his hips up to meet him.
Kurt shoves Sebastian’s shirt up as his hands continue to move, leaving it to pool around his shoulders, but Sebastian reaches a hand up and tugs it off swiftly, tossing it blindly to the side, letting it land somewhere on the floor. Kurt’s eyes are ravenous as they sweep over Sebastian’s exposed chest, so close that he can kiss him, taste him at his leisure, and he does, leaning up to trace patterns around his nipple with his tongue, kissing across his clavicle, nipping along it with his teeth.
“Is this okay?” Kurt whispers against his skin, knowing he’s already taken this farther than he thought he would tonight.
“More than okay,” Sebastian whimpers.
Sebastian nuzzles against Kurt’s neck, pushing him lightly back onto the bed, and latches onto a spot at the juncture between Kurt’s shoulder and his neck, sucking with gentle brushes of his tongue throughout. Kurt moans, wrapping his arms around Sebastian’s waist and this time Sebastian collapses against him.
“Oh, Bas.” Kurt’s voice trembles beyond his ability to control it, and Sebastian sucks harder in response.
Kurt releases Sebastian to fight with his own t-shirt, hating that Sebastian’s decadent skin is pressed against him but he can’t feel it. He tugs up sharply, and Sebastian lifts off him to help, pulling it over his head and tossing it in the same direction as his own.
Sebastian’s body pressing him into the mattress, feeling him skin to skin, hips rolling down to meet his, gives a whole new definition to the word ‘hot’. Kurt is engulfed by Sebastian’s heat. It radiates off him in waves, everywhere they touch, every place his lips caress, every murmur against Kurt’s neck. It’s a scorch; a brand. It leaves Kurt with one crystal-clear message that he repeats over and over until he has no choice but to follow the rhythm of it with his whole body.
I call him mine.
Sebastian’s fingers toy with the waistband of his pants, fingertips running along the elastic on the inside, sending shivers shooting over his skin, sparking across every nerve ending. Kurt puts his hand over Sebastian’s, ready to take the lead, guiding him beneath the soft fabric. Kurt holds his breath, waiting to see what Sebastian will do with this new freedom. In an instant, a tremendous surge of blood abandons his head in favor of southern locales, and that’s when it hits him; an equally immense rush of exhaustion slamming into him, impossible to ignore.
Kurt grinds his teeth beneath Sebastian’s kisses, wrestling to keep the yawning at bay. His eyelids stay closed longer every time they flutter shut, getting heavier and heavier as the weight of the long day pushes down on him, forcing his mind to meander away.
“Kurt?” He hears Sebastian’s voice through the cloak of sleep, weaving through the gaps and holes that close up tight as soon as they appear, and with his mind he grabs for the sound, desperate to let it lead him back to the beach house and the bedroom where Sebastian’s lips, his caresses, his whole body waits for him.
Kurt feels his lips move; a voice he scarcely recognizes mumbles nonsense words, unintelligible, and Sebastian laughs. Warm lips press against his forehead, and the tremendous heat that had him trapped to the bed lifts like a mist and floats away.
In his head, with what little stream of consciousness he has hanging on with both hands, Kurt screams in an effort to wake himself up.
‘No, Kurt! Not now! Don’t you dar…’
Kurt watches Sebastian walk around the back of the Mustang on his way to the driver’s side door, and the second he opens it, Kurt starts in on him again.
“Did you ever stop to think what would happen if you got stung?” Kurt asks, his voice rising with concern. He knows he should dial down the crazy. After all, for whatever reason Sebastian may have had for bringing Kurt here, he tried to plan a perfect day for them, and Kurt doesn’t want this one revelation to ruin the rest of it, but Kurt can’t help feeling that it was irresponsible of Sebastian to put his life at risk like this.
“Yeah,” Sebastian mutters, sounding slightly irritated. “It’s not like I haven’t been allergic to bees my whole life. Whatever would we have done?”
Sebastian sinks down into the car seat and slams the door shut. He wraps his fingers around the steering and squeezes it tight, though Kurt thinks it looks more like he’s throttling the poor thing.
“Where to now, Evil Knievel?” Kurt scoffs. “Cliff diving? Bungee jumping? I mean, since we’re obviously showing no regard for life and limb today.”
Sebastian’s stomach answers for him, growling loudly and catching Kurt off-guard in the middle of his rant. Kurt laughs, not really meaning to, until his own stomach joins in the conversation.
Sebastian relaxes his death-grip on the steering wheel and smiles.
“Well, if you’re done with the atomic bitch-fest, I take it that’s two votes for lunch,” Sebastian says. “Unless there are any other objections.”
“Not…at…all.” Kurt sighs in relief. “I had a great time, but right now, I would like to be anywhere else.” Sebastian groans at the well-worn pun and Kurt grins, turning his head in all directions to get a good look around. “But, currently we’re in the middle of not-so-scenic nowhere.”
Sebastian turns the key in the ignition and revs the engine.
“If I remember correctly, there’s a place not too far from here actually.”
“Thank God!” Kurt blows a kiss to the small roadside stand and the hive spattered gardens of the Busy Bee. “Be gone!” he crows. “Be seeing you! We won’t be back!”
“Okay, Kurt,” Sebastian deadpans, concentrating on doing a U-turn without spinning out in the loose dirt. “You can stop any time.” Sebastian lets the tires burn on the gravel road for a second before they peel out onto the asphalt and leave the bee farm far behind.
***
Sebastian’s memory is infallible. The tiny outdoor café he finds is only a hop, skip and a jump away. They literally could have walked the distance. Kurt’s eyes go wide when he sees it, letting the reality of it sink in fully before he breaks down, laughing uncontrollably at the look on Sebastian’s face as they pull into the parking lot of The Busy Bee Café - the same cartoonish bee adorning the overhanging awning, the same rustic-looking wood signs along the main road, each one cheerily adorned with the dread-inducing statement, “Last food stop for fifty miles”.
“So, can I punch you now?” Kurt asks. Sebastian stays dangerously silent, responding by shoving Kurt on the shoulder.
“If I drive at a hundred the whole way, we might be able to find something else in less than half an hour,” Sebastian reasons out loud, putting the car in reverse.
“No,” Kurt whines, tugging on Sebastian’s arm, “I’m starving! And I don’t remember us passing anything along the way, so please…”
“Alright, alright.” Sebastian relents, putting the Mustang back into park. “Just…stop making that obnoxious noise with your mouth.”
To Kurt’s surprise, the purveyors of The Busy Bee Café put quite a bit of thought into their overall curb appeal. The whimsical eatery has all of the same unsophisticated charm that the adjoining farm did. A simple, uncomplicated barn-themed structure houses the kitchen and a spacious indoor eating area. Even hailing from rural Ohio, Kurt considers himself a man of upscale, sophisticated design tastes, but Kurt has to admire the choice of black iron Bistro-style tables complimented with unpretentious, clear globe vases, each filled with a handful of fresh wildflowers bound with raffia. The picnic tables outside are their own unique works of art, but they still manage to tie together a unified theme. Each one had been washed in a coat of yellow or white paint, meticulously decorated with vines of colorful flowers traveling in swirl patterns up the legs and scrolling over the seats and table tops. The flowers and vines serve as frames for quotes, a different one for each table, and eclectic in their selection - some from the Bible, some from literature, some lyrics from songs.
The food on the menu is a perfect match to the overall atmosphere; traditional Americana with a Southern flair, and everything served with a generous side of biscuits and honey.
Even with the adorable shabby chic décor of the indoor café, Kurt convinces Sebastian to eat their meal outdoors. Luckily, there is no shortage of tress and the temperature is a good twenty degrees cooler in the shade.
“You know, all in all, I think we’re two for two as far as restaurants go,” Kurt says, picking through the various leaves of his indulgent peach, chicken, and pecan salad; lining up each ingredient on the tines of his fork in order to insure the perfect bite. Sebastian watches Kurt’s ritual with an amused smirk as he devours his own BLT with much less ceremony. “But if we keep this up, I think I’m going to go up a size.”
“I’m sure we can figure out a way to work it off,” Sebastian drawls suggestively. Kurt stares at Sebastian, condescension written on the smooth planes of his face.
“That wasn’t very original,” Kurt remarks, returning to his salad. “Are you tired, or are you losing your touch?”
“Fine,” Sebastian says, any trace of lurid suggestion gone from his voice. “I promise we’ll be eating nothing but boiled leek soup from here on out.”
Kurt’s smile blooms slowly, but he doesn’t look up from his salad to meet Sebastian’s playful green eyes. Instead he has become captivated by the quote that embellishes the table top where they sit. Painted in brown, each letter given depth with a slight shadow of beige, flowing effortlessly back and forth between the wooden slats of the table top are the words: “Every little thing wants to be loved.”
Kurt can’t imagine a more appropriate quote, considering the circumstances. So often Kurt had assumed that Sebastian knew nothing about being in love; too hard-hearted and too much of a cynic for paltry things like love to be of any importance to him, but never once did he consider that maybe Sebastian wanted to learn. At times, especially when Sebastian saw Blaine’s text messages on Kurt’s phone, when he tore Blaine apart for leaving Kurt behind and using the enormity of his love as an excuse, what Sebastian knew or wanted seemed irrelevant. In the end, what did Kurt really know about love? How could he claim to have some intrinsic knowledge on the subject when he couldn’t see Blaine’s plan for what it was - idiotic?
Wasn’t it Sebastian who pointed that out to him; calling Blaine out for his stupidity?
Maybe Sebastian knows more about being in love than Kurt gives him credit for; an aspect of his own that Sebastian can teach Kurt if given the chance. An undercurrent of warmth at the thought of learning how to love Sebastian wraps around Kurt’s spine as he recalls all the kisses, all the touches, all the moments of jealousy and the significant looks they’ve shared, each one carrying with it a thread of deeper meaning, unexpressed and woefully undervalued, that Kurt longs to unearth and experience fully.
An errant car speeding by on the otherwise deserted road draws Kurt back from the silence. He eases out of his thoughts, gaze lifting to see Sebastian looking pensively at the quote on the table top, too; his eyes following along the words, tracing over them one at a time. Sebastian’s look of intense concentration intrigues Kurt, but just when Kurt expects Sebastian to make some sort of erudite observation, instead he huffs a short, annoyed laugh.
“What is it?” Kurt asks, feeling offended on behalf of the quote that has found a special place in his heart.
“That quote is from the book The Secret Life of Bees,” Sebastian clarifies, shaking his head and finishing off the last of his sandwich. “We’re not going to get away from those little motherfuckers, are we?”
Kurt rolls his eyes even though he’s inclined to agree, tucking into the rest of his salad while Sebastian starts tearing apart chunks of one biscuit and dipping it in the thick amber pool of wildflower honey.
“Do you think we ran into the guys that made this batch?” Sebastian ponders, and Kurt snickers at the ridiculous statement. Sebastian pops the saturated portion in his mouth, but not quick enough to catch a few drops that miss his mouth and land on the contour of his lip, threatening to drip down his chin. Kurt stops and stares as the lingering drop goes unnoticed and another piece of biscuit follows the first. After the third bite, Sebastian catches Kurt staring. His eyes shift left to right and an absurd smile lifts his lips.
“What?” Sebastian asks, his voice muffled around a mouthful of half-chewed biscuit, but at least he’s decent enough to put a hand up over his mouth to lessen the gross factor of talking with his mouth full.
“N-nothing,” Kurt stutters, the edges of his lips lifting to form the hint of a smile, eyes twinkling in the subdued sunlight, and a single thought swirling through his mind like a Tilt-A-Whirl. The thought of how much he wants to lick that drop of honey off Sebastian’s skin. Kurt’s rational mind weighs his options carefully, second-guessing every step he wants to take. He’s eager to shift gears, be bold, jump in and take the first step. He needs to find a way to show Sebastian that he wants to move forward. They have already crossed so many different lines during the course of their ‘fake’ relationship, others blurring to the point that they’ve dissolved entirely. He doesn’t want to cycle all the way back to the beginning, ironically, as they try to take things to the next level.
As this inner debate continues to run its course, Kurt starts to move, climbing catlike across the table, thoughts flipping back to their lunch in Virginia, thumbing through the memory till it lands on the image of Sebastian wiping the mustard from Kurt’s face; the light brush of his thumb grazing the corner of Kurt’s mouth, the way it lingered, tracing down his cheek, and that look on Sebastian’s face after, the one that told Kurt that Sebastian is as uncertain about stepping into this new territory as he is.
Kurt doesn’t want to be stuck in the mire of uncertainty anymore. So much of his life seems up in the air, balancing precariously like plates spinning on sticks with him at the bottom frantically trying to keep them aloft, but bracing for the inevitable fall. Sebastian is the one thing right now that Kurt wants to be absolutely sure of.
Taking a cue from the memory replaying in his head, he reaches out his hand and with a finger he’s fighting to keep steady, collects the drip of honey from off Sebastian’s lip. Sebastian swallows hard at the first touch of Kurt’s fingertip against his skin, his tongue sweeping over his lip slowly, as if chasing Kurt’s finger.
Time suspends them in this discreet patch of dappled shade with Kurt poised in front of Sebastian, his finger hovering in the air. Without thinking, Kurt sticks the finger in his mouth and sucks off the drop of honey, eliciting a moan from Sebastian that definitely doesn’t sound uncertain or unsure. Sebastian’s green eyes go dark, glued to Kurt’s mouth, mesmerized by the way his lips surround his finger, the subtle movement of his jaw, the way his cheeks hollow.
“Do you think you got it all?” Sebastian asks, his voice rough and shuddering ever so slightly.
Kurt slips his finger from his mouth and appraises Sebastian’s face thoughtfully, biting his lip and tilting his head, preparing for his next move.
“You know, I think I’d better make sure.”
It takes less than a second to decide; after all of Kurt’s hedging, kissing Sebastian turns out to be easy; easy as breathing and bending and meeting each other half way. They don’t simply touch when they kiss; they connect, but it’s different from this morning’s kiss on the beach. The fire between them doesn’t ignite during this kiss. It’s unhurried, relaxed; it simmers, content to flow and carry them along wherever it goes. Even when Kurt’s tongue licks along the seam of Sebastian’s mouth, wiping the rest of the honey away, and Sebastian leans forward, resting a hand at the base of Kurt’s neck, rubbing at the knot in his spine with his thumb, Kurt decides not to take the kiss further. He leaves this kiss to worm its way inside Sebastian’s brain and take root so that he wants more…so that he has to think about what exactly ‘more’ might mean.
Kurt pulls away, pecking one last, chaste kiss over Sebastian’s chin before retreating back to his side of the table.
Sebastian’s eyes are still closed when Kurt sits on the bench, and right before he opens them, he runs his tongue over his lower lip, revisiting the spot where Kurt’s tongue had been.
“What was that?” Sebastian asks, inhaling suddenly as if he forgot how to breathe and only remembered again now.
Kurt has an idea in his head, that maybe Sebastian can consider it an invitation, but he doesn’t have enough courage to voice it out loud.
Where is a bottle of tequila when you need it?
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Kurt replies with a shrug, busying himself with piling his plastic fork and knife into the plastic deli container that had contained his salad. Sebastian watches him through narrow eyelids, chewing around a thought, his lips curling into his patented, devious smirk.
“I think I’ll take it as our cue to leave,” Sebastian says, hopping off his bench and gathering up the trash from the table. Kurt eyes him as he tosses their garbage away and then immediately heads off in the direction of the Mustang, spinning around in a half-circle once to make sure Kurt follows. Kurt smiles and stands up from the bench to join him. He takes once last look at the quote on the table, running the flat of his hand over the painted words, setting them to memory.
“Every little thing wants to be loved.”
***
Kurt doesn’t know when it happens. One minute he’s sitting in the Mustang, staring out the window as they speed back to the coast, singing along with Sebastian to the Scissor Sisters ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’, occasionally cut off by a persistent yawn that refuses to be squashed. He blinks to banish the dust and lubricate his dry eyes. He blinks once, twice, but the next time he blinks they are back at the beach house, pulling into the carport. An hour flew by completely unnoticed, and even though he recognizes that he must have really needed the sleep if he fell out so completely, he regrets not spending that time talking and singing; he regrets missing the opportunity to find out more about Sebastian in those covert ways in which he discloses his secrets. If their hapless adventure this afternoon has proven anything to Kurt, it’s that he knows practically nothing about this boy he’s fallen so hard for.
All this time they have spent in each other’s company and Kurt never knew Sebastian had a life-threatening allergy? That seems like the kind of information a friend - not to mention a “boyfriend” - would know.
Kurt considers the things that time and familiarity usually reveal during the course of a relationship.
Out of the impressive collection of tomes he surrounds himself with, which one is Sebastian’s favorite?
Fuck…how about his favorite color? Favorite food? Favorite movie? Favorite subject in school?
What about his plans for the future; a future that is barreling toward them full-speed ahead?
But Kurt doesn’t want to dwell on the heavy right now, not when Sebastian’s looking over at him with a grin that says he’s thinking of a million ways to tease one seriously bedraggled Kurt Hummel.
“Wh-what the hell happened?” Kurt groans, his throat parched, his voice gravelly.
“You fell asleep,” Sebastian says smoothly, killing the engine and pocketing the keys. “Incidentally, you snore like a tractor.”
Kurt sits up quickly, jaw dropping to his knees.
“Take that back!” Kurt gasps.
“Can’t.” Sebastian opens the car door, turning his head to look over his shoulder at Kurt. “It’s truth time.”
Kurt opens his door and follows suit, chasing after Sebastian, bent on vengeance, but he’s derailed mid-jab by another matter of the utmost importance - the potential of another morning without his obligatory first cup of coffee.
“Fuck!” Kurt exclaims, throwing an exasperated hand to his face and rubbing his tired eyes with the heel of his palm.
“Here?” Sebastian quips back quickly, raising an interested eyebrow. Kurt doesn’t comment back, deciding to let Sebastian have this win. Even he has to admit he walked into that one, but Sebastian’s roguish expression has him seriously considering rising to the challenge. What exactly would Sebastian do if Kurt sashayed over to him, eyes brimming with unrestrained desire, tore off his clothes and leapt into his arms? But Kurt reconsiders. The floor of the carport looks hard and uncomfortable.
“No,” Kurt grouses. “We forgot to stop at the supermarket, and I’m not exactly looking forward to oyster cracker and easy cheese soufflé for dinner.”
“Well, actually, I have an idea.” Sebastian’s voice drops, taking on a low, silky quality; the easy twist from playful to something akin to seduction sends chills over Kurt, spiraling around him, burying deep into his stomach, pooling with heat. Sebastian advances on Kurt, trapping him in the allure of whatever promise lies hidden behind his grass-green eyes.
Maybe Kurt’s invitation in that kiss earlier came through louder than he thought.
Would Sebastian really take him up on it?
“Yeah?” Kurt asks lamely, but when Sebastian looks at him with that mysterious dark gaze, Kurt’s mind goes blank. Kurt’s body yearns for him, and he is dying to know how long Sebastian intends on making him wait.
The cold cement wall hits Kurt’s shoulders as he backs into it, and he swears he hears his heated skin hiss with the contact.
“What’s your idea?”
Kurt wants to cringe at his sudden inability to come up with any witty or even slightly provocative banter, but he doesn’t care, because Sebastian is standing so close, crowding in against him, every blessed square inch of their bodies pressed together, and his lips are hovering so near. A lean, a slight incline is all it would take…
“I want you, Kurt Hummel,” Sebastian whispers, and Kurt, his eyes fluttering closed, waiting for this kiss that promises to burn, misses how Sebastian’s lips begin to curl, “to dig for clams.”
A thin, cold, and metal object drops into Kurt’s hand, dangling off his fingertips. His eyes snap open, his fingers folding reflexively around something that feels suspiciously like a wire, and he’s torn between an urge to throttle Sebastian for goading him so cruelly, or hanging himself for falling for it so damned hard.
***
“So, what exactly are we doing?” Kurt calls as he trails after Sebastian, metal bucket in hand, hopping over jutting stones and cursing every time the soft underside of his foot comes in contact with a sharp and pitted rock, saving himself from falling on his ass several times when his heel hits random patches of slimy lichens. He stops on a fairly stable plateau overlooking the oncoming white-caps of the splashing surf to roll up the cuffs of his pants. These might not be the most stylish clothes, but he’s going to do his best not to completely ruin them. Kurt hurries to catch up when he sees how far ahead Sebastian has gotten, frowning that he didn’t stop to wait and trying hard not to be impressed at how comfortable he is leaping from one dicey-looking rock to the other.
“We’re going to find some mud flats,” Sebastian calls over his shoulder, unwilling to break his stride, “and dig the clams up. It’s pretty self-explanatory.” Sebastian only stops when he hears Kurt’s squeal of distress, racing back in time to rescue him as he slips, teetering on the edge of a narrow ledge that’s being pounded mercilessly by the surf, and almost falling headlong into the ocean.
“Fuck, Kurt!” Sebastian yells at first, taking a long breath in as he steadies himself with Kurt bracing against him for dear life. Kurt waits, sure some angry insult is going to follow, some comment about how clumsy he is, but Sebastian sighs through clenched teeth, and Kurt knows he’s trying.
“Careful there, babe,” Sebastian says instead with barely the ghost of his original frustration evident in his voice. “I don’t need you washing away with the tide.” Sebastian sets Kurt upright on the rock beside him, holding Kurt’s hips securely until he is sure that Kurt can stand on his own. “That happens to be our one and only bucket.” Kurt sneers as Sebastian starts again on his rampant pace, but doesn’t miss how Sebastian keeps their hands locked.
After close to thirty minutes of leaping from rock to rock and dodging waves, Kurt considers asking if they’re going to walk the entire length of the Atlantic coast. They’re a good distance from the beach house. Kurt looks back over his shoulder and can barely see it on the dune where it sits overlooking the ocean. Sebastian stops suddenly and it’s all Kurt can do to keep from slamming into him and tipping them both into the water. Sebastian looks down from the shelf of rock where they stand and nods to himself.
“Here.” Sebastian reaches into the pockets of the board shorts he had changed into before they left on this shellfish scavenger hunt, pulls out two balled-up pairs of white tube socks, hands one pair to Kurt and keeps the second pair for himself. “Put those on.”
“So, that’s what you had in there?” Kurt asks, unrolling the socks and looking them over quizzically. “And I thought you were just excited to see me.”
“When I’m excited to see you, Hummel, you’ll know,” Sebastian says with a quick, lust-filled glance down Kurt’s body that makes Kurt’s face flame red. Sebastian balances on one foot as he pulls on a sock, glancing up at Kurt when he notices his reluctance to move.
“Babe, you’re really going to want to put those on,” Sebastian urges, finishing with his second sock.
“But, they’re going to get all soaked and mucky,” Kurt grumbles, starting to slip the first sock over his sandy foot with a grimace.
“Better than getting the bottom of your feet torn to shreds.” Sebastian dusts his hands off on his shorts. “Some of those clam shells are razor sharp.”
Kurt has a hard time visualizing the bottoms of his feet getting any more torn up than they already are, but he eventually gives in. Sebastian undeniably knows what he’s doing, and it would suck if Kurt couldn’t walk for the rest of their vacation. He can’t picture Sebastian catering to a wounded Kurt, especially if he obtained his injuries due to his own stubbornness.
“Ugh,” Kurt mewls when he puts his sock-clad foot down into a puddle of glop. “Couldn’t we have just gone to the store?”
“Stop complaining, princess,” Sebastian chides, but this time the nickname that Kurt has always detested sounds endearing. “It’s not all that bad. Clams taste a lot better when you pull them out of the sand with you own hands. Besides…” Sebastian jumps down into the mud below with a wet slap as his feet hit the surface of the thick brown goop, “I have a feeling I’m going to really enjoy watching you do this.”
Sebastian eyeballs Kurt with a mischievous grin, but Kurt, dubious at the prospect of tromping knee-deep in something that looks like toxic sludge, makes no move to join him.
“So, are you coming, Kurt? These clams aren’t going to leap into our bucket on their own.”
“I don’t want to,” Kurt says quietly, taking a step back, holding tight to the bucket handle with both hands.
“Kurt,” Sebastian runs a sandy hand through his hair, apparently beyond caring what kind of wreck he looks like, (though he still manages, to Kurt’s despair, to look like an exquisitely handsome mess regardless). “The stuff down here is the same stuff you’re standing in up there.”
“Yeah, but it’s shallow up here,” Kurt gripes. “Look! You’re sinking up to your knees!”
Sebastian shakes his head, sparing a glance down at the mud that he is currently sinking into. He bends down and grabs a handful of mud, moving through the dense substance to get to where an obstinate Kurt stays attached to the safety of his ledge. He brings the handful of mud down on Kurt’s legs, smoothing the gritty gunk over his skin.
“No! Sebastian!” Kurt yelps. He steps back quickly to get out of arm’s reach and slips again, this time falling backwards, feet flying out from under him, and landing on his tailbone in a puddle, splashing his clothes and his skin. Sebastian’s accompanying laugh only adds insult to injury as Kurt looks down his body with disgust.
“See,” Sebastian chokes out, “now you don’t have an excuse.”
Kurt tosses the bucket blindly in Sebastian’s direction and growls in aggravation when he hears it bypass Sebastian’s head and land in the mud.
“Thanks, babe!” Sebastian chortles. “But I’m not starting till you get your ass down here.”
Kurt feels his hackles start to rise. He wants to fume, the pull himself out of the mud and stomp back the way they came, not that he could figure out the route without Sebastian’s help, unfortunately, but he can’t, because even though Sebastian is laughing at him, it’s that genuine, disarming laugh that Kurt is finding harder and harder to resist. And when he takes a moment to think about it, his predicament is kind of funny. If Sebastian were sitting in a puddle with his ass soaking up mud, Kurt would have a field day. Kurt hears a sickening sound like a spoon being dragged through old, coagulated oatmeal. He looks between his legs and sees Sebastian hoisting his body up onto the rock, an unexpected expression of concern on his face.
“Jesus, Kurt, are you okay? Did you hurt yourself? Can’t you get up?” The barrage of questions catches Kurt unaware so he passes up on a golden opportunity to ham his injury up for all its worth.
“I’m fine,” Kurt says, pushing off his elbows and letting Sebastian help him to his feet. “You don’t have to be such a mother hen. I’m not a child, you know.”
“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t know it by the way you’re acting,” Sebastian bites. “It’s just a little mud, Kurt. I’m trying to have some fun here. You remember what fun is?”
“Well, mud may be fun for you, pigs, and toddlers, but it’s not exactly my cup of tea.” Kurt runs his hands over his body in a fruitless attempt to sweep the drying crud off his clothes.
“Don’t bother.” Sebastian grabs Kurt’s hand and drags him back to the edge. “If we’re going to eat at all tonight, you’re going to have to get a lot dirtier than that.” This time, Sebastian holds on to Kurt’s hand when he makes the leap off the ledge, bringing a protesting and cursing Kurt along with him for the ride. Sebastian lands flawlessly on his feet, but Kurt lands on his knees, sending generous huge droplets soaring all over, dousing his face, his hair, and his clothes, which he has long since lost hope of saving. With any luck, Fall-Out Boy will perform in a venue Kurt can get to soon so he can replace Puck’s shirt.
“Now feel around with your feet and find us some clams,” Sebastian says, reclaiming the bucket from where he left it and shuffling away. Kurt struggles to stand upright with his legs stuck in slop.
“You have got to be kidding,” Kurt mumbles, but he decides to buck up and suffer through since the sooner he finds these stupid clams the sooner they’ll climb out of this repugnant morass and head back to the house. He skates around trying to find mollusks with his feet - a situation Kurt Hummel would have never dreamed in a million years he would find himself in. He feels around in the sand and from the corner of his eye he sees Sebastian, arms outstretched for balance, a sentimental smile on his face. Kurt tries to imagine Sebastian out here on vacation with his family doing this exact same thing. He pictures Julian trying to wrestle Sebastian into the mud while Olivia screams for them to stop…or more than likely cheers them on, eager to side with the winner in making the loser’s night miserable. Kurt chuckles to himself realizing he’ll probably find out how true to life that scenario is when everyone else gets there.
He can hardly wait.
“Clam,” Sebastian calls, and Kurt hears a loud clunk in the metal bucket. “Come on, Hummel. I’ve got three already and you’ve found nada. Stop daydreaming and help!”
Kurt scowls, but pads around with his feet in the soft ground in search of something hard. He hits one and bends down, glowering as he sinks his hands into the mud, grabbing the object and pulling it up, fighting with the sand that’s hell bent on keeping this clam for itself. Kurt plucks it free, crying out in victory, clearing away the mud to look at his prize.
He frowns when he realizes what he’s found instead.
“I have a rock,” Kurt grumbles, tossing it aside.
“Clam,” Sebastian calls in the meantime, sounding excessively pleased.
Kurt searches around and hits upon another hard object. He plunges ahead, grabbing and quickly yanking up the hard ovoid.
“I have a…nother rock.”
“Clam!” Another metallic clank follows.
“Rock…”
“Clam!”
Clunk.
“Rock!”
“Clam!”
Clunk.
“ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKING ROCK!”
“Clam!”
Sebastian can barely get the word out as he walks over to the bucket, and snickering, drops his eighth clam in.
“What the hell!” Kurt turns, seeing Sebastian’s smug face and tosses a handful of mud his way, which Sebastian doesn’t dodge nearly quick enough. “When did I become Charlie Brown! I’m getting all the gall-darned rocks.”
“Gall-darned?” Sebastian chuckles. “Really?”
“Just…help me with this! Please! So I don’t go back to the house thinking I got covered in filth for nothing.”
Sebastian sighs, his eyes still shimmering with tears from laughing so hard, but he takes pity on Kurt and decides to show him the finer points of digging for clams. Kurt watches Sebastian move around the mud, feeling with his feet in the dense muck. He stops in a spot and his eyebrows shoot up.
“Okay,” Sebastian says, holding out his arms and beckoning for Kurt to join him. “Come here and feel this.”
Kurt rolls his eyes and trudges over to join Sebastian, pressing the ground with his foot till he finds Sebastian’s foot, and then feels for the hard object he is standing on.
“Do you feel that?” Sebastian asks.
Kurt nods.
“Can you feel the ridges and the ribs? How it’s not completely smooth?”
Kurt nods again.
“Go ahead and dig that up.”
Kurt bends over, his hip rubbing against Sebastian’s legs as he reaches into the mud to find the hard lump they’ve been standing on. He misses the way Sebastian shifts, the way he groans softly, caring only about the first clam he has ever dug up. Kurt pulls the creature out and raises it triumphantly in the air, spattering them both with a spray of dirt.
“I got one!” he cheers.
“That…that’s great, Kurt,” Sebastian says, his voice sounding tight as he moves to a different area of the mud flat to go back to fishing out clams. “Now, get about twenty more of those, and we’ll be ready to go.”
“Twenty!” Kurt groans. “Ugh!”
“Yup,” Sebastian says with a strange, eerie cheerfulness. “And I forgot to mention…the person who finds the least carries the bucket back to the house.”
***
Kurt groans, complaining loudly as he lugs the bucket along the rocks, grasping the handle in both hands and hoisting it in front of him, using his body for support and leverage. He has to stop every half a minute or so to put it down, his hands stinging and red after only ten minutes.
Kurt never quite makes it to twenty. The tide comes in hard and fast, flushing the boys back up onto the rocks, but Kurt is proud of the ten or so he did manage to find, his competitive diva side trying not to acknowledge that Sebastian found nearly three times as many, if not more.
But the proof is in the pudding as Sebastian bounds ahead and Kurt flails behind, burdened by their dinner.
“What do we do with these guys now?” Kurt says, trying to distract himself from the weight and the pain with light-hearted conversation, flinching when the metal cuts into his skin. Sebastian turns around when he hears Kurt’s question, and comes to a full stop when he sees him limping along. He sighs, walking back along the trail to reach him, putting a hand on his arm to stop him, and sets the bucket down. Sebastian takes off his socks, ringing out as much of the mud and water as he can. He takes Kurt’s hand and wraps one sock around it, then does the same to his own hand.
“You get one side,” Sebastian instructs, “I’ll get the other. And try not to fall on your ass again and drop the bucket, please. I don’t relish the idea of going back and digging for clams in the dark at high tide.”
“So, you don’t mind losing me at sea,” Kurt says, finding it hard to be too upset when Sebastian is helping him without being asked, “but the clams…the clams we have to keep safe!?”
“Priorities, babe,” Sebastian says with a wink, picking up his side of the bucket and pulling Kurt along in tow as he holds onto the other. “Right now I’m so hungry I’m pretty sure I can polish off this whole bucket by myself. Besides…you’d float.”
“You still didn’t answer my question,” Kurt says, stumbling to keep up, focusing on shadowing Sebastian’s footsteps on the rocks and not on the way the muscles of his arm bulges and shifts under the weight of the bucket. Kurt is amazed to see Sebastian like this; a hunter-gatherer, getting his hands dirty and doing this kind of manual labor, such a bizarre juxtaposition to the Sebastian Smythe who lives on a million dollar estate, who spent time abroad and attended an expensive private school. Kurt is finding this rough and rugged side a tremendous turn on, and not just because of the emphasis on Sebastian’s physical beauty. There’s something to be said about a man with money who doesn’t just snap his fingers and make things appear.
There’s no doubt in Kurt’s mind that Sebastian could have called any number of stores or restaurants within a twenty mile radius and had something delivered, but digging for clams is about more than just dinner. It’s about spending time together, about sharing a part of himself with Kurt…and to a degree, probably about getting Kurt filthy and making him look like an ass.
“When I was changing into my board shorts I took another look around…” Sebastian stops and readjusts, and Kurt takes the opportunity to do the same. “I found a box of pasta and a bottle of white wine, so I’m thinking we steam them, and serve them over spaghetti.”
Kurt cannot help but be skeptical about Sebastian’s ability to cook competently after the great French toast fiasco of just a few days ago, but it doesn’t sound too complicated. His mouth salivates to the point of drooling at the sound of clams steamed in white wine, and he tries his best to walk faster.
They make it back to the beach house as the sun dips down below the horizon, lighting up the sky in a brilliant array of champagne pink and pale gold, the blue ocean darkening to nearly a solid indigo when Kurt turns to look at it again from one of the stalls of the outdoor showers. They wash off quickly to avoid trailing mud in the house, trying to ignore the way their shoulders bump together under the lukewarm water while they rinse the clams, though Kurt’s eyes might linger a bit on the way Sebastian’s tan skin contrasts against his own alabaster complexion beneath the spray. Maybe his breathing speeds up with the thought of Sebastian’s hands running along his wet skin, his heart thrumming with the image of them sharing lazy kisses; gentle, leisurely, unrushed, spending all the time in the world lavishing attention on each other.
Kurt wishes he knew what it would take to convince Sebastian to join him in a shower. (Tomorrow, Kurt might learn to be careful what he wishes for.)
Kurt feels the night breeze prickle over his skin and only then becomes aware that the shower of water has stopped. His eyes drift up and he sees Sebastian staring down at him, his eyes hooded, bordering in the neighborhood of something breathless and raw, but now is not the time to explore it.
By the time they make it to the kitchen, Kurt doesn’t feel like he’s carrying a bucket filled with just clams, but the beach, the ocean, the sunset, an entire hive of bees pregnant with honey, and Sebastian - the smile that touches his eyes, his genuine laugh, and his kisses…so many awe-inspiring kisses.
“Geez, princess,” Sebastian grunts the final few steps. “You must have gotten way too much sun. You look positively loopy.” Sebastian pulls the bucket out of Kurt’s hands and sets it on the kitchen island, and Kurt realizes he has a huge, goofy smile on his face. “Why don’t you hop in a shower and I’ll get this started.”
“Are you sure?” Kurt asks, already heading for the bathroom. Sebastian shakes his head as he watches Kurt disappear down the hall.
“Don’t…stop…come back…” Sebastian murmurs, smiling as he pulls down a large pot from the cabinet and fills it with water.
***
Kurt strips off the grimy clothes and sets them carefully over the tub, at this point wondering why he even bothers since they are positively ruined. He looks at his naked body in the mirror, scrunching his nose at the layer of gunge that still clings to him despite their quick rinse. His eyes fall on the various bottles of his skin care regimen lined up neatly on the sink beside bottles of product he assumes are Sebastian’s. He smiles, walking his fingertips from bottle to bottle. It all seems so startling domestic that for a moment Kurt freezes, stupefied by the notion that so much of who they are can blend so seamlessly. Kurt intersperses the bottles, creating a pattern of his-mine-his-mine-his-mine until the perfectly sized row of Clinique-Neutrogena-Dior represent what Kurt is aiming for - us.
Kurt sets the temperature level to scalding in an effort to melt away the scum, kind of like dry cleaning without the Martinizing. He leans against the cool, powder blue tile and watches the remains of the day slide off his skin - dust, sand, and sweat pool in the water around his feet before spiraling down the drain. He scrubs his skin twice to get rid of the mud and glares at the presence of a few new freckles he’s seemed to inherit along the way, hoping that his precious miracle serum from the Dior Snow line will take care of them for him.
Kurt stays in the shower longer than he plans, inspecting every inch of his skin obsessively for residual mud, sand, and God knows whatever else might have been lurking in the quagmire they trekked knee deep in. When he finally gets out and dries off, he notices that a couple of the bottles on the sink have gone missing and his knees go weak at the thought of Sebastian stepping into the bathroom while he was showering to retrieve them.
He returns to the kitchen, half-expecting to see every pot, pan, and plate stacked in the sink, with the addition of some food item scorched beyond repair, pasta hanging from the ceiling, and the poor clams trying their best at making a break for freedom. Instead, Sebastian is adeptly plating their food, his hair wet, skin attractively flushed, wearing a similar white t-shirt and cotton sleep pants as they both wore the night before. Sebastian doesn’t look up when Kurt enters the room, but smirks as he goes about his work.
“I hijacked another bathroom,” Sebastian explains. “You took so long I was afraid you might have drowned, so I thought I’d give you another ten minutes.”
Kurt shakes his head and laughs.
“Thanks for your concern.”
Kurt hops up onto a bar stool and watches Sebastian pour a thin sauce from a pan over a plate of pasta piled high with opened clams.
“I have to admit I’m impressed,” Kurt concedes. “After your disastrous attempt at making breakfast, I thought for sure this might be out of your depth.”
“I’ve never had to make anyone breakfast before,” Sebastian says, and Kurt’s not sure why, but the comment grips a hold of his heart and twists. He knows he’s going to have to put any jealousy over Sebastian’s past conquests behind him if they’re going to forage ahead, but he didn’t expect any jokes about that now, not when they were here alone together.
“So, does that mean you’ve made dinner for somebody then?” Kurt asks. He means it as an answering taunt, but it comes out bitter and defensive.
Sebastian’s eyes are soft when they lift from the plate to look at him.
“Never,” he says, and it sounds reassuring and unerringly honest, so Kurt shelves his jealousy, reaching out to take the plate that Sebastian offers him.
“Come on.” Sebastian hands Kurt a bottle of water that he brought in from the trunk of the Mustang and a set of silverware, and carrying his own dinner plate and bottle of water, leads them into the living room. There’s a flat screen t.v. mounted to the wall, but the boys opt instead to sit in front of the picture windows with the lights turned low, watching the tide crash into the shore while they eat their dinner cross-legged on the floor, a selection from Rachmaninoff playing on a compact Bose stereo sitting in the corner, the music filling the room from tiny speakers stationed in different areas so that the sound comes at them from all around.
Kurt twirls his spaghetti delicately, conscious that even though Sebastian is making an effort to look disinterested and nonplussed that he’s watching Kurt, waiting to see his reaction. The first bite touches Kurt’s tongue and the flavors that fill his mouth are intense, fresh and sublime, somehow seeming to form a single taste that sums up their entire day. The dry white wine manages to hold on to its subtle sweetness beneath the salty tang of the clams that remind him heart and soul of his morning at the beach. It’s not just something for his taste buds to savor; it’s an honest to God emotion. Kurt decides then and there that he is going to hold on to Sebastian with both hands for as long as humanly possible since he has no intention of eating anything but this one dish for the rest of his life, even if it requires hours of combing through a bog every day at sunrise and sunset.
The sacrifice to Puck’s wardrobe might just be worth it.
Kurt closes his eyes to relish every bite, every slide of the pasta around his mouth, the last traces of alcohol firing along his tongue, the satisfying combination of flavors unveiled when the flesh of the clams explodes between his teeth. He sighs, opening his eyes, and sees Sebastian staring at him, his lips parted, his expression hungry, but possibly, Kurt would like to believe, for a much different reason than want of food.
“This actually borders on something close to romantic,” Kurt says, daintily twirling more spaghetti around his fork.
“Hey, now,” Sebastian says, mimicking offense. “You don’t know me, Kurt, alright. I’m romantic as fuck.”
Kurt laughs, bringing the pasta and seafood to his lips and taking a bite, chewing deliberately to give himself time to think. Kurt swallows and takes a sip of his water before he continues.
“You’re kind of right, though,” Kurt says, moving what’s left of his food in a path around his plate. “I don’t really know much about you, do I?”
Sebastian’s expression drops a bit, shifting to melancholy, and he shrugs.
“If that’s important to you…”
“It is,” Kurt interrupts, matching Sebastian’s look with one of his own, full of questions he wants to ask and misgivings that he wants to clear up, but mostly a confirmation that without a shadow of a doubt he is right where he wants to be.
“Okay.” Sebastian nods, looking conflicted, but he pushes it aside, standing and extending a hand to Kurt to help him up.
“Leave the plates,” he says. “We’ll get to them in the morning.”
Kurt is sure Charlotte wouldn’t approve of them leaving dirty plates on the living room floor to get dried out and crusty, but he decides not to mention it, seeing as they are headed to bed, and Sebastian is leading the way.
***
They separate to brush their teeth because no matter what Kurt will most likely never feel comfortable doing that in front of anyone. Preparing for bed in what he has affectionately labeled ‘the blue room’, Kurt’s sense of déjà vu switches into overdrive, except this time he’s even more nervous than he had been the night before. He doesn’t know why but he is starting to get the feeling that in this arena, where Sebastian should conceivably be able to take the lead, he seems more content to follow - for now at least, which puts Kurt in the position to lay out the boundaries.
Sebastian wants to take things slow, which gets harder now that all Kurt seems to want to do is speed things along.
They’re going to need to agree on a middle-ground.
Kissing? Yes.
Touching? Uh…somewhat…
Rutting? Still up in the air.
Kurt runs is hands through his hair and looks at himself in the mirror.
‘Just relax,’ he tells himself, ‘and let whatever happens happen.’
About eighteen more self-help slogans later, Kurt walks to the bedroom and finds Sebastian standing right where he was last night, in front of the windows looking out at the ocean, body still rigid, expression still unsure, and more than anything Kurt wants to find the key to breaking through that tension. This time when he shuts the door and Sebastian turns to look at him, Kurt runs headlong and leaps into the bed, sinking into the mattress and letting it bounce him back, the comforter wrapping around him end over end like a burrito.
“So, mud is for toddlers, but bouncing on the bed is perfectly acceptable adult behavior?” Sebastian’s voice has an edge of uneasiness, but Kurt’s stunt has the desired effect. He’s laughing and climbing into bed, grappling to get Kurt unwound from the blanket.
“Yup,” Kurt confirms, “because unlike mud, jumping on the bed won’t ruin my clothes.”
“Believe what you want to, babe,” and there he is. The suave, over-confident king of innuendo is back, and the atmosphere loosens up around them. Kurt rolls the comforter flat and climbs underneath on his side, while Sebastian crawls in on the other.
Sebastian lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, and Kurt lies on his side and watches him. In the silvery light of the waxing moon bathing the room, Kurt can see contemplation flicking through his thoughtful green eyes.
“What are you thinking?” Kurt asks.
Sebastian turns his head to face Kurt, looking almost surprised by the question.
“I was thinking…I don’t remember the last time…” Sebastian sighs with frustration, as if nothing he can think of to say is good enough. “I’ve never spent a day like that with someone before. I liked it.”
Kurt bites his lip and nods, a strange sensation of pride flourishing within him that he doesn’t feel right to owning up to out loud.
“What are you thinking?” Sebastian reciprocates with a sly smile, and Kurt decides that this moment, this peaceful, laid back, light-hearted moment is as good as any to make his move.
“I was thinking that I’d like to touch you,” Kurt says, and Sebastian’s smile morphs from his usually smug façade to sincerely dumbstruck. “Actually, I’ve been kind of thinking about it all day.”
Kurt doesn’t give Sebastian time to object or himself a reason to second-guess. He reaches across the invisible boundary that seems to divide them, grabs a handful of Sebastian’s shirt below the collar, and tugs towards him lightly. Sebastian follows, rolling onto his side and then getting up on his hands and knees. Kurt shifts to move beneath him, putting Sebastian in a better position to hover over his body.
Kurt watches all the conflicting emotions play over Sebastian’s face as their eyes meet, and it seems logical that every step from here on out should be natural.
“Do you want to kiss me?” Kurt asks, curious where all this confidence is coming from all of a sudden; excessively glad that it doesn’t have to come from a bottle.
Sebastian tilts his head, eyes focusing on Kurt’s mouth more than his eyes.
“Pretty much all the time,” he whispers.
“Then why don’t you do it more?”
Kurt means it as a friendly jab, not even a serious question. He doesn’t really want an answer; it’s simply a way to let Sebastian know that he has permission, blanket permission, to lay claim to Kurt’s lips whenever and wherever he wants. But it stops Sebastian in his tracks, and he pulls away a bit.
Kurt watches Sebastian fluster, stumble over ideas and thoughts, trying to pinpoint just the right one, and suddenly Kurt is charmed all over again. This brilliant boy who loves books, who reads and digests and savors each one, can borrow any number of words, select from a bevy of quotes and expressions to fit his current emotion, and if he did, Kurt knows he would most definitely swoon. He considers telling Sebastian that, but he can’t, because Kurt can tell from the slightly pained look on Sebastian’s face that the words he’s struggling over are his own; he has ownership of the ideas he longs to express. Kurt can’t take that away from him. He’ll sit patiently and wait.
“I like that I get to touch you,” Kurt confesses, intervening, relieving Sebastian of the burden to come up with an answer to his rhetorical question.
“I like you touching me,” Sebastian says through a shy smile.
Kurt slips his hands beneath Sebastian’s shirt, running them up his back, fingers dancing along his spine, and Sebastian starts to uncoil. Kurt can feel it; tendrils of apprehension siphoning away beneath his fingertips. Sebastian’s eyelids close as he absorbs Kurt’s touch, sinking down slowly to get closer to Kurt’s body, until he’s supporting his weight on his elbows, resting his forehead against Kurt’s, rubbing his nose gently against Kurt’s, lips barely brushing.
Kurt’s hands follow Sebastian’s spine back down to his hips and in a fluid motion that begs no permission, slips beneath the waistband of his pants to palm boldly over the smooth skin of his ass.
“Oh, Kurt,” he sighs in a single, broken breath that fills Kurt with an overwhelming desire to hear more of it. He reaches further, fingertips brushing the backs of Sebastian’s thighs. Sebastian drops his head down the short distance and kisses him, and the hunger from earlier, from all the times Kurt caught Sebastian watching him, resurfaces. It’s possessive, unrestrained, spurred on by the brazen journey of Kurt’s hands as they close in around Sebastian’s hips and pull his body down further so that Sebastian can feel him, feel the way he reacts to Sebastian’s body. Kurt’s hands fit into the sway of Sebastian’s back, in that curve where his hips join the swell of his ass, and he pins Sebastian against him, rolling his hips up to meet him.
Kurt shoves Sebastian’s shirt up as his hands continue to move, leaving it to pool around his shoulders, but Sebastian reaches a hand up and tugs it off swiftly, tossing it blindly to the side, letting it land somewhere on the floor. Kurt’s eyes are ravenous as they sweep over Sebastian’s exposed chest, so close that he can kiss him, taste him at his leisure, and he does, leaning up to trace patterns around his nipple with his tongue, kissing across his clavicle, nipping along it with his teeth.
“Is this okay?” Kurt whispers against his skin, knowing he’s already taken this farther than he thought he would tonight.
“More than okay,” Sebastian whimpers.
Sebastian nuzzles against Kurt’s neck, pushing him lightly back onto the bed, and latches onto a spot at the juncture between Kurt’s shoulder and his neck, sucking with gentle brushes of his tongue throughout. Kurt moans, wrapping his arms around Sebastian’s waist and this time Sebastian collapses against him.
“Oh, Bas.” Kurt’s voice trembles beyond his ability to control it, and Sebastian sucks harder in response.
Kurt releases Sebastian to fight with his own t-shirt, hating that Sebastian’s decadent skin is pressed against him but he can’t feel it. He tugs up sharply, and Sebastian lifts off him to help, pulling it over his head and tossing it in the same direction as his own.
Sebastian’s body pressing him into the mattress, feeling him skin to skin, hips rolling down to meet his, gives a whole new definition to the word ‘hot’. Kurt is engulfed by Sebastian’s heat. It radiates off him in waves, everywhere they touch, every place his lips caress, every murmur against Kurt’s neck. It’s a scorch; a brand. It leaves Kurt with one crystal-clear message that he repeats over and over until he has no choice but to follow the rhythm of it with his whole body.
I call him mine.
Sebastian’s fingers toy with the waistband of his pants, fingertips running along the elastic on the inside, sending shivers shooting over his skin, sparking across every nerve ending. Kurt puts his hand over Sebastian’s, ready to take the lead, guiding him beneath the soft fabric. Kurt holds his breath, waiting to see what Sebastian will do with this new freedom. In an instant, a tremendous surge of blood abandons his head in favor of southern locales, and that’s when it hits him; an equally immense rush of exhaustion slamming into him, impossible to ignore.
Kurt grinds his teeth beneath Sebastian’s kisses, wrestling to keep the yawning at bay. His eyelids stay closed longer every time they flutter shut, getting heavier and heavier as the weight of the long day pushes down on him, forcing his mind to meander away.
“Kurt?” He hears Sebastian’s voice through the cloak of sleep, weaving through the gaps and holes that close up tight as soon as they appear, and with his mind he grabs for the sound, desperate to let it lead him back to the beach house and the bedroom where Sebastian’s lips, his caresses, his whole body waits for him.
Kurt feels his lips move; a voice he scarcely recognizes mumbles nonsense words, unintelligible, and Sebastian laughs. Warm lips press against his forehead, and the tremendous heat that had him trapped to the bed lifts like a mist and floats away.
In his head, with what little stream of consciousness he has hanging on with both hands, Kurt screams in an effort to wake himself up.
‘No, Kurt! Not now! Don’t you dar…’