We Were Never Here (4/5)
Masterpost
Rachel's fashion problem was actually very close to being a disaster. She'd somehow decided that it was an acceptable idea to dip into her old, pre-makeover wardrobe for her date with Brody that night, and it took a full fifteen minutes to talk her down from the metaphorical edge of the fashion cliff.
Thankfully, by the time Kurt had gotten home and solved the crisis for her, Rachel had very little time to question Kurt on where he'd been all day. When she started in on Kurt, he was able to brush her off with some hand waving and vague comments about bad hangovers. Rachel narrowed her eyes, looking to probe deeper, but just as she opened her mouth there was a knock at the door. Between all the different ways Brody cut down on Rachel's insanity, Kurt reflected, Brody was quickly becoming Kurt's favourite person.
But then, as Rachel turned to say goodbye to Kurt she whispered at him, "This isn't over, Kurt. I know there are more details and I expect all of them on my return." And that only brought images back to Kurt of the boy he'd left in a hazy, sun-filled room, and, well, maybe Brody could be second favourite.
Soon after Rachel, left Kurt signed onto Skype, hoping that maybe his dad would be around. Burt was slowly becoming better at managing his office in DC and the shop, especially with Finn looking to settle in Lima for the foreseeable future; this had left him with more time to relax around the house, the way he should to preserve his health, and thus more time with Skype signed in just in case Kurt was around. However, when Kurt signed in his dad's little icon was grey, and Kurt felt a slight stab of guilt. He talked to his dad on the phone fairly often, and more than most other people his age for sure, but he knew Burt enjoyed getting to see Kurt. His dad struggled a little sometimes without the cues that came from Kurt's facial expressions and body language, whether he acknowledged it or not. And Kurt had been spending so much more of his free time with Sebastian that he'd not been around on Skype nearly often enough.
Someone else was signed into Skype, though. Blaine's icon was green, and this drove the little stab of guilt Kurt felt even deeper. Blaine was another person Kurt had not spoken to enough of late. Learning to let go was still a work in progress for both of them, and instead of talking, they both tended to avoid it all by throwing themselves into their own lives and not making time for each other. And then as the letting go became easier, and being involved in their separate lives became less of a distraction and more of a focus in its own right, the habit of making time for each other just wasn't there. But really, no matter the direction their lives were taking, that wasn't okay. Like he told Blaine, letting go or not, Kurt still loved him.
Kurt opened a chat and tentatively typed in, Blaine?
It took about a minute - long enough for Kurt to idly open a trashy fashion blog - before the request for a video call came through. When Kurt accepted it, there was Blaine, dressed fairly casually but hair still trapped in a full helmet of gel.
"Hi Kurt!" Blaine said, bouncing a little in his chair.
Kurt smiled broadly in return, glad to see Blaine was having a good day. "Good afternoon to you, kind sir," he said. "How might you be this fine spring day?"
Blaine laughed, looking out the window Kurt knew was to the left of Blaine's desk. "I don't know about 'fine spring day'; it might be spring, but it looks pretty wet and miserable outside to me." He looked back at Kurt and said, all shameless and smiling, "But it's much better now that I've seen your pretty face."
If Kurt was perfectly honest, one of his favourite things about finding stability in their separate lives had been the return of flirty Blaine, who was back like Kurt hadn't seen since they were both at Dalton and Blaine had been utterly oblivious. It spoke of Blaine being comfortable in his own place in a way Kurt was worried he wouldn't see until Blaine finally got to college, wherever it may be.
"Someone's in a good mood today," Kurt said by way of avoiding reply, and Blaine's smile split a little wider.
"Yeah, I am - well, I mean, I was in an okay mood today already, but now you're here and I can tell you it's an even better one." He paused for dramatic effect, and then said in a rush, "I got my audition invitation letters this week. From a bunch of colleges."
"Oh my god, Blaine, that's amazing!" Kurt said, jumping up a little in his seat himself and clapping his hands. "Which colleges?"
"So far I've gotten letters from Elon, CCM and NYADA. Both schools at NYU have requested that I just send an audition video, so I'm waiting on Carnegie Melon and OSU now."
Kurt babbled something about that being so great, and Blaine grinned at him for another moment before his face sobered a little. "Wait, I'm sorry, I should have asked - have you heard from NYADA as well?"
Kurt nodded and reached to the side of his desk, where his own NYADA audition invitation sat on the table. "It arrived in the mail this week. Looks like fate's decided to give me a second chance after all."
Blaine launched off into an excited babble about their audition songs, and how much preparation Kurt thought might be too much, and had Kurt asked any of the people from NYADA about their own audition experiences yet? Kurt tried to be enthused about it all, but let part of his mind drift elsewhere.
Truth be told, Kurt had very nearly not reapplied for NYADA this year. It had taken more than one long conversation with a surprisingly supportive Sebastian before he'd decided to bother filling out the form and sending it off. Kurt knew that it was silly to give up on his dreams so easily, but when everything was taken into account, it had almost not seemed worth the strain of applying all over again. For starters, Kurt had indeed been talking to some of the NYADA boys about auditions - friendly, mindless chatter to pass the time in Callbacks before Heat got a good crowd and sneaking cheap drinks if one of the bartenders was willing to not check IDs too closely. Everyone he spoke to had had similar, terrifying audition experiences to Kurt's own, and had been left with equally little feedback at the end of it about what was and wasn't good. Not many people had much to say on the idea of Kurt reapplying except one, who winced when Kurt had mentioned the idea in passing.
"I'd think twice about it, man," he'd said, regarding Kurt with a hint of sympathy. "I mean, it sounds like Tibideaux likes you from what you've told me, so maybe if there wasn't really anything wrong, and there just wasn't space for you, it's worth trying again. But if there was something she actually didn't like with you - and trust me, there's something she doesn't like about almost everyone, even perfect pets like Brody - she's not keen on giving second chances on anything other than her terms. I've seen too many people fuck up and grovel for a chance to fix it, only to be humiliated, to encourage you."
And on top of that daunting advice, came the consideration of Kurt's job at Vogue.com. When Kurt had asked Isabelle to write him an extra reference for the application, discussing the success of the makeover video and Kurt's general work ethic, Isabelle had taken the time to sit him down and give him a warning. She'd tried to phrase it as nicely as possible, but ultimately she'd explained that if Kurt was going to study full time, then there wouldn't be a place for him at Vogue. Studying part time, Kurt could probably keep up the work hours to hold his job, but the hours NYADA would demand of him, and at inflexible times? Despite Kurt's initial affront, he knew that Isabelle had been as nice as possible about it, and appreciated being given such a clear choice. Kurt enjoyed throwing himself into the fashion world - loved it, at times - and it was hard to pass up such an incredible entry, one that might never come his way so easily again. Not to mention, he loved being self-reliant now that his job was a paying one, and going back to living off supplements from his dad, ones Kurt always felt a little guilty receiving, was not something he was keen to revisit.
It had eventually been Sebastian, of all people, who'd talked Kurt into applying, despite it adding to his "long list of gay clichés" that Sebastian took frequent opportunities to mock Kurt for. After spending awhile talking the issue around in circles, to varying degrees of Sebastian's patience, the other boy had eventually said, "Look, Kurt. It's not a death sentence to your fashion career if you choose to attend NYADA. Say you apply, and you get in. Taking one year to try NYADA out and keep your options open is going to hurt you a lot less in the long run than cutting yourself off from something before you're entirely sure you're ready to let it go."
Sebastian had stopped, but Kurt had merely waved his hand, gesturing for Sebastian to continue, knowing the boy had more to say. Sebastian had sighed before continuing, saying, "Look, don't take this the wrong way. But you never, ever take the path of least resistance. You always have to make life as difficult for yourself as possible. And if you give up on the Broadway thing so quickly? One day, whether your fashion career is successful or not, you're going to hate yourself for it. On the other hand, if you try NYADA, even just for one year? It'll be harder to forge your career without another job like Vogue falling into your lap, yeah. But it's doable, and knowing you, you'll probably enjoy the challenge, even if you bitch out every single person around you the entire time."
Kurt had slapped Sebastian for the tease at the time, but had taken the advice to heart. Sebastian rarely gave speeches like that, so Kurt had the feeling Sebastian felt relatively strongly on the matter - though Kurt hadn't known why at the time. In retrospect, the thought of why Sebastian might care so much made Kurt smile.
"So where's your audition?" Blaine asked, drawing Kurt back into the conversation properly.
"In the NYADA concert hall," replied Kurt, trying to muster up some enthusiasm, at least for Blaine's sake.
"Oh wow," Blaine replied. "That will be spectacular. Getting a preview on what the next four years of your life are going to look like, hey?"
Kurt smiled vaguely, not having the heart to correct Blaine right now. "What about you?"
Blaine laughed lightly. "I think the number of, ah, characters at McKinley scared Carmen Tibideaux off last year. This year they've decided that all the Ohio applicants have to travel to Cincinnati for their audition, so it's going to be at a high school there."
Kurt, wanting to end this particular topic of conversation, said fondly, "Blaine, you have to be the only person our age who calls bat shit crazy people 'characters'. You grandpa."
"I'm just old fashioned, and you love it," replied Blaine. And, well, Kurt certainly couldn't argue there.
"Speaking of people who are old fashioned," Kurt said slowly, drawing it out, "how's Thomas?"
Blaine blushed slightly and said, "He's fine. Still sweet, but I, ah, don't think the spark is there. We're still hanging out, but it's mostly platonic."
Thomas was a junior Warbler from Dalton that Blaine had met a few months ago, and tentatively told Kurt about in February. Blaine had been very hesitant to tell Kurt anything at first, especially with their deal to talk over the summer about getting back together; but Kurt had been slowly becoming lost in Sebastian by that point, and had found that he honestly hadn't minded hearing about someone he knew was only ever going to be temporary.
"Aw, that's a shame."
"He had plenty to live up to, I guess," Blaine replied, looking at Kurt up through his eyelashes.
"Be kind to the boy is all that I ask," Kurt said. "Charmed-by-Anderson Syndrome is one that's difficult to cure in teenage boys, or so I've heard."
Blaine laughed along with Kurt, and then fixed him with a more serious stare. "You're in a very good mood today, too," he said. "What's got you so happy?"
Kurt froze, not having the slightest idea of what to say. For all that he had encouraged Blaine to open up to him about the boys he was meeting, Blaine had not done the same, and Blaine's request to spare him the details back in January was still at the forefront of his mind.
"There's someone special, isn't there?" Blaine eventually asked, when Kurt never replied. "There's another boy that put that smile on your face."
Kurt nodded, and then said, "There is someone. But I haven't told anyone else yet. It only happened today."
Blaine regarded Kurt, eyes slowly brightening with an odd mix of wistfulness and resignation. "But it's been coming for awhile, hasn't it? I know we haven't been talking as much as we should, but I could kind of see it coming. Someone's been making you... stronger, I guess. More sure of yourself. For at least the last couple of months."
Kurt started. He hadn't realised, as he'd been observing that development in Blaine, Blaine had been seeing it in him. "I didn't think it was ever going to happen," Kurt replied. "I thought he was just going to be a friend. But, it turns out that I was wrong."
Blaine's mouth twisted a little bitterly. "I guess that's my fault. I was the one that taught you to never, ever read into anything, after all."
"Oh, honey, no." Kurt rushed to reassure Blaine, but the shorter boy just held up a hand.
"It's alright, Kurt. Do you want to tell me about him?"
Kurt seriously thought about it. Now was the time he should probably do it - no matter how things were going to look in the future, Blaine probably deserved to know that it was Sebastian. But for some reason, with all the history and mess between the three of them, he just couldn't force the words out. "I don't think that's a good idea."
Blaine asked, "Is it because I won't like what I hear, or because you don't think I can handle hearing anything at all?" The question, which could have so easily sounded like an accusation, somehow didn't. They always did their best never to judge each other, and mostly succeeded.
"A bit of both," Kurt eventually replied.
"Okay," Blaine said, accepting Kurt's word without probing, and wasn't that twisting the guilt in further. "Just - and please, give me an honest answer, even if you think I won't like it or it'll be hard or anything - please tell me: is it serious?"
"It could be," Kurt replied. "But he's leaving New York at the end of the year, at least for awhile, so it's too early to say."
Again, Blaine accepted the words with grace. "I hope he keeps making you happy," Blaine said, and then turned the conversation to idle chatter if they'd never been discussing anything heavier at all.
***
Kurt and Sebastian fell into the rhythm of their relationship as easily and unexpectedly as they'd fallen into their friendship. It changed so much, but the changes came so easily, to Kurt at least, that he never once lifted his head from the thrilling, crazy rush that was being Sebastian Smythe's boyfriend.
People accepted their relationship with varying degrees of ease, though to Kurt's disgruntlement (and even more Sebastian's, Kurt suspected) no one was entirely happy for them except Brody - and even then, Kurt was fairly sure it was only because he now spent more time at Sebastian's than he did in the apartment. Rachel and Burt had been nearly intractable in their uneasiness, even knowing how close Sebastian and Kurt had been coming in the time before they'd officially become a couple. Their unease was compounded when Kurt had quietly asked them not to tell Blaine who was dating, and even further compounded just about every time Kurt and Sebastian fought - which was fairly often, Kurt freely admitted, especially as Sebastian slogged through his mid-semester exams. What Rachel and Burt didn't see, though, was that almost every fight now ended with them grinning madly at each other, followed by activities of a less than G-rated nature, and Kurt loved every minute of it.
That was another thing almost no one understood - exactly why Kurt loved their relationship, as wild and violently passionate as it was. They all seemed to assume, whether they'd known Kurt in Lima or not, that he wanted another person like Blaine, someone comfortable and courteous. No one seemed to see what Kurt could so clearly, that the storm that Sebastian had put in his head now spread out to encompass the boy himself, that their relationship was the storm, and that Kurt felt most alive when tossed and thrown about amongst the thunder and the lightning. Sebastian challenged Kurt in a way no one ever had before, and it was thrilling and absolutely everything Kurt had never known he'd needed, but had become hooked on more quickly than he could blink.
Continuing the line of people who disapproved for one reason or another was Charlie, and all the NYADA boys who came with him. Because, as wild as their relationship was, both he and Sebastian were determined to keep it private. While once upon a time Kurt would have gladly flaunted his relationship, both of them were far too possessive to share much of their limited time together. So the longer that they were together, the less they went out clubbing; especially after the second time they did so as a couple, when Charlie had made his ritual pass at Kurt, complete with trying to steal a kiss, and Sebastian had nearly gutted him. It was the only time Kurt had seen Charlie looking anything other than amused.
A month to the day into their relationship, Kurt was at Sebastian's apartment, crawling through his unfairly huge CD collection. Kurt's audition for NYADA was in a week, and as unsure as he'd originally been about the whole process, now that Kurt had committed to it he was almost unbearably nervous about what was to come. Sebastian was on the other side of the room, studying some sort of chemistry Kurt didn't even want to try to understand, but when Kurt fell sideways onto the sofa with a sigh he closed his textbooks and came to Kurt, crawling up to lie beside him.
"What's wrong?" Sebastian asked, sliding one hand under Kurt's head to cradle it. "Can't find anything appropriately hideous enough to please a musical theatre purist?"
Kurt pulled an indelicate face at Sebastian and then closed his eyes, sighing again, even more dramatically than before. "I have absolutely no idea what to pick. I put everything on the line for my last audition and it didn't pay off, so it's almost impossible to choose a direction this time."
"You know Rachel showed me the video she took of your audition, that time you were taking forever to change out of that monstrosity of buckles," Sebastian teased, sliding backwards a little to dodge the smack that he had learned almost always came after a comment like that. "And I managed to pick my brains up off the floor long enough to see something other than the amazing sight of you in those gold pants." Sebastian mouthed along the side of Kurt's neck for a moment, making him whine; it had only taken Sebastian a week to figure out exactly how to dismantle Kurt entirely with his hands, mouth and cock. After a month, it only took a touch or two for him to work Kurt up. When Kurt started to grind against his boyfriend, though, Sebastian pulled back with a smirk. "I think you proved you can do the showbiz sparkle as well as NYADA could possibly want. So I think this time, you should try to show them that you can kick ass at a different kind of performance."
The confidence Sebastian had in Kurt - that it was a given to him that Kurt was more than a one-trick pony - had never ceased to warm Kurt. But tonight, not even it was enough to soothe his mounting panic. "Like what?" Kurt asked. "That performance I gave Carmen last year - that was me at my best. I honestly have no idea what else I have to give that could top that."
"Come on, babe, you're letting your anxiety blind you," Sebastian said gently, grabbing at one of Kurt's hands and lacing their fingers together. "You can think this through. What's the opposite of all that shiny, polished showbiz shit?"
"Rawness?" Kurt answered tentatively, feeling rather like a kindergarten student being guided through some basic problem.
"Exactly," Sebastian replied.
"Sebastian, you of all people should know how stupid it is to try to tell me to be 'raw', to lose the polish. I wouldn't even know how to start going about it."
"No. See, because I'm such a spectacular boyfriend who knows you so well," Sebastian said, smirking, "I know there's an exception to that. All that polish can disappear in a second."
"Somehow, I don't think that you sticking three fingers in me and making me beg right before I go on stage is going to help," Kurt said dryly, barely even blushing.
"Ooh, feeling patronised makes you crass. I'll have to remember that." Sebastian leaned closer to Kurt, so their foreheads were almost touching. "That's not what I meant, though. When you're singing about someone you really care about? You beam out emotions like a lighthouse. Even when you're singing along to your iPod while cooking or going through that ridiculous skincare regimen, I can still tell when a song has reminded you of someone important, because your whole face... not softens, exactly. Just shifts. You can't help but give away everything going on in that overfilled heart."
Sebastian was starting to look uncomfortable with how unexpectedly sappy his talk had turned, so Kurt took pity on him and drew him into a quick, dirty kiss. That was the trick with Sebastian - let him fall into these moments of emotion or honesty before he'd realised he was there, and then distract him before he could freak out about it.
Kurt broke off the kiss a short while later to ask archly, "So I sing about someone, then? And I don't suppose you have any suggestions as to who."
"Me, of course." Sebastian pasted on a quick, smug grin, taking the out Kurt offered him.
"Of course," Kurt replied. "So, what, oh my man I love him so, he'll never know?" Kurt trilled. "All my life is just despair-"
Sebastian, who had pulled himself off of the sofa, grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it at Kurt. "Please. Your life's been fucking ecstasy since I crashed it."
"Hm, still reserving judgement on that one," Kurt replied, watching curiously as Sebastian hunted through the racks of CDs, eventually pulling out one about mid-way down the wall. He returned to Kurt, not bothering to sit back down, and handed over the jewel case.
As soon as Kurt saw the cover he laughed, knowing there could only be one song Sebastian meant. "You want me to sing the song that was playing the first time we slept together."
"Yep," Sebastian said, looking all too pleased with himself. "Just think about it."
Oh, and Kurt was thinking about it - that night, three days after they'd officially gotten together, sitting on that very couch and arguing about the finer points of their music tastes. Sebastian had gotten downright derisive about not only Kurt's love for show tunes in general, but had launched attacks on the types of songs Kurt listened to within the genre; in retaliation, Kurt had pointed out that there was probably a reason half the bands Sebastian listened to remained undiscovered by any major record label.
Like most of their arguments, it had devolved very quickly in the most blissful of ways, and they had moved to the bedroom, chests heaving, hands already fumbling at belts and zippers. The music of Sebastian's iPod, still on shuffle, had followed them, and had provided an unexpected soundtrack to the moment. Kurt had tuned it out for large chunks of time, completely unable to focus on anything but the stretches of skin before him or the spiral of keening lust Sebastian's hands and tongue had put him on. For just a moment as Sebastian had fingered Kurt open, Kurt had gasped, choking on the air and his desperation, and had heard the wild rush of Drumming Song playing around them - but that's not what Sebastian wanted him to sing.
No, it was another one, one that had played later, when Sebastian had first pushed into Kurt. He'd braced himself with one arm against the headboard, looked down at Kurt and kissed him fiercely. Then he'd stroked his fingers down Kurt's neck, and then eased himself in - and Kurt had thrown his head back, feeling Sebastian's intrusion shooting down his legs and up his sides to tingle in his fingers. And Sebastian had been everywhere, and then he'd started to move. And on that drag out, he'd opened Kurt up, splitting his mind and heart until they were gaping, and in had rushed this song - an atom to atom oh can you feel it on me love, a pattern to pattern oh can you see it on me love - and Sebastian had sealed the music in with his kiss.
Long after Kurt stopped feeling sore, after they'd had sex a dozen times more that had wrecked Kurt in so many different ways, the song, Strangeness and Charm, had lingered in his mind.
"Oh my god," Kurt said, looking down at the CD in his hand. "You picked my audition song for me."
"Yep," Sebastian repeated, turning away towards the kitchen.
"You picked my audition song for me, and you picked the song we first fucked to."
"Yes, I did. You'll have to shorten the song, but you'll be amazing."
Kurt got up and followed Sebastian, wrapping his arms around Sebastian's middle from behind to stop him in his tracks. "You are the most ridiculous human being on the planet, and I have no idea why we're together."
"Well, babe, it's like I explained to you on that very first morning here in New York," Sebastian drawled. "There was always something burning pretty hot between us. And once we got our bitching out of the way..."
"Hah. You just admitted to bitching."
"What can I say?" Sebastian said with a shrug, turning around to face Kurt, kissing him lightly. "You bring out the worst in me. Plus," he then added, "it's actually pure chemistry."
"Pray tell," Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You remember collision theory from high school? It's just like they teach you. Two molecules react when they hit each other in the right direction, with enough force to break their current bonds. It's science, babe."
Kurt stared at his boyfriend for a moment before dissolving into helpless laughter, hiding his face in the crook of Sebastian's neck. "Pre-med is turning you into the world's biggest dork," he said. "Keep it up, though. The worse you get the less competition I have."
Sebastian scooped Kurt up with a growl, crossing the room in seconds and depositing Kurt, a little ungracefully, back on the couch. He climbed over Kurt a second later and pressed him down, biting and sucking at Kurt's neck while playing with the buttons on his shirt. He claimed Kurt's lips in a hard kiss, and then muttered into his mouth, "As if there was ever any competition."
And he kissed Kurt again and Kurt fell, fell, fell.
***
Sebastian and Kurt were lying cuddled together one lazy Saturday afternoon at the beginning of May. Sebastian had pulled an all-nighter trying to get an assignment done before the nine am deadline, and Kurt was slowly coming off the high of his NYADA audition the day before, so they were content to drift in and out of consciousness on the whim of the near-summer air. As long as they were still together.
Truth be told, Sebastian wouldn't have had to have pulled the all-nighter had he not gone with Kurt to keep him calm and watch the audition, not that he'd told Kurt that. It had been entirely worth sitting at the computer until five in the morning, leaving a sleep-warm boyfriend in his bed, to see the performance Kurt had given. Kurt had been stunning, to no one's surprise but his own. Sebastian was more than a little smug that his guess had paid off - from the look on that Carmen woman's face as they had left the concert hall, that kind of rawness had been exactly what she had been looking for from Kurt, and had not expected to find. Sebastian knew without a doubt that Kurt would be offered a place at NYADA next year.
But even seeing Kurt at his shining performance best yesterday didn't change the fact that this was Sebastian's favourite kind of moment, just as they were now. Kurt nuzzled a little closer, rubbing his cheek shamelessly against Sebastian's shirt, and Sebastian's chest tightened (he refused to pinpoint it to his heart, because yeah he might have a boyfriend now but he wasn't a fucking sap). He knew that he wasn't the only one to have ever seen Kurt like this, that there had been someone before him that Kurt had curled up with in nothing but a thin, white undershirt and jeans, but it didn't change the softness of Kurt's skin, or the warmth in his eyes as he cracked them open occasionally just to let them fall on Sebastian's face.
It didn't change the fact that Kurt was the first person to make the silence something good and comforting.
Kurt stirred, sliding his palms over Sebastian's shoulders and back again, smiling softly as he shifted himself higher. Kurt's cheek pressed to Sebastian's neck for a moment, where he paused again as if to listen to the breath in Sebastian's throat; and then Kurt pushed himself up onto an elbow to hover over Sebastian, face to face. Sebastian didn't flinch when Kurt's fingers came up to Sebastian's temple and stroked, fluttering their way gently down to his chin.
Every day, Kurt was teaching Sebastian. If anyone else had dared to try something like that, they would have been slapped away and verbally destroyed before their fingertips ever made contact with the skin of his temple. But that was the guy who hadn't known how to be a boyfriend, and he was learning now. Maybe not about everything, because shitty things like 'talking about his feelings' never got any easier, but these wordless demonstrations? The giving and taking and displaying? He had this.
Still silent, Kurt bent down over Sebastian's face, and when Sebastian's eyes fluttered closed to better breathe Kurt in, tiny kisses were touched to his eyelids. Sebastian didn't open his eyes and felt Kurt move instead, until a equally tiny kiss was pressed at the hollow of his throat and then at the point of the v in the neck of his t-shirt.
And then Kurt laid his head back on Sebastian's chest, mostly centred but slightly off to the left, and Sebastian choked so harshly and suddenly that he was surprised he didn't jolt the boy off of his chest.
Sebastian closed his eyes and breathed. Breathe, breathe, release, relief. Breathe in the smell of Kurt's hair. Sebastian tried not to panic.
And, after only a few more breaths, found it shockingly easy not to.
Because it might have only just hit him, but being in love with Kurt wasn't something to panic about.
Sebastian looked down at Kurt's face, still smiling a little even though pale eyelids were fluttering shut over blue eyes again, and watched as Kurt surrendered back to the warmth and the doze.
***
Saturday was, for Kurt, a perfect example of how his relationship with Sebastian, and the boy himself, could go from one extreme to another in less than twenty four hours.
The day had started, at least for Kurt, when Sebastian's previous day ended - at five am, with Sebastian crawling into bed after finally finishing his bioethics assignment, dragging Kurt towards his body with little regard for Kurt's sleep. It was a rough way to wake up, but in the sweetest way possible, knowing that all that Sebastian wanted at the end of an exhausting day was to fit Kurt into his arms, even if they wouldn't stay that way in sleep for long. In fact it wasn't long after that Sebastian had dropped into a very deep sleep and Kurt had crawled away, well and truly awake now, to contemplate New York from the bedroom window as the sun rose.
Sebastian had stirred at a reasonable morning hour, and Kurt had made him breakfast as a silent thank you for everything - convincing him to go to NYADA, helping him pick an audition song, and even putting off the assignment to the last minute to come to Kurt's audition, no matter how much he protested that he would have stayed up late doing the assignment anyway. He'd even let Sebastian crack a few inappropriate jokes about Kurt being a well trained houseboy, figuring that Sebastian had earned a few easy points for his side of the tally.
The afternoon had dragged them back to bed, and for all that Kurt knew he was, at heart, just a silly romantic, it had been one of those afternoons that would be burned into his spirit for a very long time to come. Not because of the significance of anything that was said and done - all they'd really done was cuddle and sleep on and off in the afternoon light for hours - but because of the look on Sebastian's face. If at any point Kurt had thought that maybe there were remnants of the hardened, unsympathetic boy from their senior year left in Sebastian as he was now, it would have all been washed away a hundredfold over the course of those simple hours. Because no one could have a trace of ill will in them who looked so terribly vulnerable to another's touch. And there were so many things that could have tainted the time - worries about the fact that the term would be over in a few short weeks, and that Trinity College lay in wait for Sebastian beyond the summer's sunset - but none of them had been let into the air between the two boys, too full of the things Sebastian could never find the words to say or feel the self-worth to hear from Kurt.
But here, now, in that deep kind of night that was neither yesterday or tomorrow, was the other extreme of it all. Kurt wasn't sure when he woke, only that he eventually became aware of Sebastian twitching beside him, sleeping but still flinching away from something. Just as Kurt was preparing to shake Sebastian awake, not sure exactly what to do because Kurt had never seen his boyfriend anything but calm in his sleep before, tears started to leak out of Sebastian's clenched-shut eyes. And Kurt could feel Sebastian wake in the sudden stiff-stillness of his now familiar body, but still Sebastian's eyes were tight shut, and still the tears came.
"Sebastian?" Kurt whispered, and stroked a hand down the side of Sebastian's face. Sebastian flinched harshly at the touch on instinct, but then grabbed at Kurt's hand before he could yank it away. He held strong onto Kurt's fingers for a moment, pressing them against his lips, and said hoarsely, "How on earth am I supposed to atone for all of that?"
Kurt was stunned into inaction at first, stuck in a memory of the Sebastian from months ago who'd asked Kurt the same question in just the same pleading tone but with only half the desperation. Kurt had thought Sebastian had let go of the concept since, because he never spoke about it. Apparently not.
"Did you dream?"
"I did," Sebastian replied, his voice becoming jagged as his breath turned to gasps. "All those things that I did, and I want to play god. How can I ever save lives with pictures like this in my head? I'm the one that created them."
Kurt was starting to get scared. He wished Sebastian would open his eyes, just give Kurt an in, because Sebastian shut off like this was impossible to deal with and he'd never seen his boyfriend so upset before. "What pictures are there?" he asked, trying to make his voice soothing, and stroked Sebastian's face, over the lines of tightness on his forehead and around his eyes.
"David Karofsky, swinging from the rafters."
Kurt's blood turned to ice. And then he yanked Sebastian against his body as hard as he could as if maybe somehow the cold in both of them would add together to make something warmer. "Oh baby, you made up for that so long ago."
"A couple of charity baskets and a dedicated glee club performance doesn't atone for something like that." Sebastian still wouldn't open his eyes, keeping them screwed shut so sightly it looked painful. He looked almost as if he were stuck in some horrible trance, still more in his nightmare than the waking world.
Kurt bit his lip, indecisive, and whispered, "One throwaway line didn't make David do what he did. But are you really still looking for atonement?"
"I am, I am, but I don't know how to find it. You're my greatest atonement but it's not enough."
"What do you mean I'm your greatest atonement?" Kurt asked, suddenly stiffening himself.
"You're everything good I can do in this world," Sebastian whispered, breath starting to calm again.
Kurt wished he could say the same about his own breath. "Is that all I am, Sebastian? Just a drawn-out form of making right everything you feel bad about seem alright? Because you're making a kid you picked on in high school happy?" It was the distress in Kurt's own voice that seemed to finally drag Sebastian out of his own, and before he could feel guilty about that, hands were on Kurt's face.
"Oh god, babe, no, no," Sebastian rushed out, eyes now wide open. "Not at all."
"Really?" Kurt asked. "Because every time I've gotten you at your most honest - blind drunk, still half asleep - it's what you talk to me about. Atoning."
"Because sometimes it seems like you're the only thing I can do right. You're the only person I've touched where I think I've done more good than harm. But that doesn't mean I'm trying to use you to make up for everything else," Sebastian replied, digging one hand into his own hair.
"Okay, shhh, I believe you. I trust you. I'm not freaking out. I'm sorry," Kurt said, grabbing Sebastian's hands and bringing them up to be kissed. "But Sebastian, you being so fixated on this idea of atonement worries me."
"It's not like I can shake it. Trust me, I've tried. Nothing works. You can't run from it. I'm still trying," Sebastian said weakly. He sounded like he was trying to throw his walls back up but they were crumbling back down again with every word Kurt heard.
"Nobody could possibly atone for everything they feel bad about," Kurt told him. "I don't think you need to atone for anything. But if you feel like you need something, then I don't think atonement's it. I think what you're looking for is absolution." Kurt went back to stroking his fingers across Sebastian's forehead, using the backs of them this time.
Sebastian soaked up the touch, and then he eventually asked, "Is there a difference?"
"Of course," Kurt said, locking eyes with his boyfriend through the darkness. "You're still trying to pay for the things you've done somehow, when all you really need is forgiveness. And that's free."
"I still don't know how to find that either, though." Sebastian turned his face a little more into Kurt's hand.
"I think, if you asked them, most people you're looking for forgiveness from have already given it," Kurt said, moving his hands so his thumbs were now gently stroking across Sebastian's eyebrows.
"I can always hope, I suppose," Sebastian said, his eyes starting to droop under Kurt's ministration. They flicked open again, though. "Hey, Kurt?"
"Mmm?"
"For what it's worth? You're... I... I love you."
Kurt gently ducked his head down to kiss at the v in Sebastian's t-shirt, then at the hollow of his neck, and then, as Sebastian fluttered his eyes shut in anticipation, each of his browned eyelids. "It's worth everything. And I love you too."
And where they'd both been falling, falling, falling, they stopped, having found each other in the tumble down.
Part Five
Rachel's fashion problem was actually very close to being a disaster. She'd somehow decided that it was an acceptable idea to dip into her old, pre-makeover wardrobe for her date with Brody that night, and it took a full fifteen minutes to talk her down from the metaphorical edge of the fashion cliff.
Thankfully, by the time Kurt had gotten home and solved the crisis for her, Rachel had very little time to question Kurt on where he'd been all day. When she started in on Kurt, he was able to brush her off with some hand waving and vague comments about bad hangovers. Rachel narrowed her eyes, looking to probe deeper, but just as she opened her mouth there was a knock at the door. Between all the different ways Brody cut down on Rachel's insanity, Kurt reflected, Brody was quickly becoming Kurt's favourite person.
But then, as Rachel turned to say goodbye to Kurt she whispered at him, "This isn't over, Kurt. I know there are more details and I expect all of them on my return." And that only brought images back to Kurt of the boy he'd left in a hazy, sun-filled room, and, well, maybe Brody could be second favourite.
Soon after Rachel, left Kurt signed onto Skype, hoping that maybe his dad would be around. Burt was slowly becoming better at managing his office in DC and the shop, especially with Finn looking to settle in Lima for the foreseeable future; this had left him with more time to relax around the house, the way he should to preserve his health, and thus more time with Skype signed in just in case Kurt was around. However, when Kurt signed in his dad's little icon was grey, and Kurt felt a slight stab of guilt. He talked to his dad on the phone fairly often, and more than most other people his age for sure, but he knew Burt enjoyed getting to see Kurt. His dad struggled a little sometimes without the cues that came from Kurt's facial expressions and body language, whether he acknowledged it or not. And Kurt had been spending so much more of his free time with Sebastian that he'd not been around on Skype nearly often enough.
Someone else was signed into Skype, though. Blaine's icon was green, and this drove the little stab of guilt Kurt felt even deeper. Blaine was another person Kurt had not spoken to enough of late. Learning to let go was still a work in progress for both of them, and instead of talking, they both tended to avoid it all by throwing themselves into their own lives and not making time for each other. And then as the letting go became easier, and being involved in their separate lives became less of a distraction and more of a focus in its own right, the habit of making time for each other just wasn't there. But really, no matter the direction their lives were taking, that wasn't okay. Like he told Blaine, letting go or not, Kurt still loved him.
Kurt opened a chat and tentatively typed in, Blaine?
It took about a minute - long enough for Kurt to idly open a trashy fashion blog - before the request for a video call came through. When Kurt accepted it, there was Blaine, dressed fairly casually but hair still trapped in a full helmet of gel.
"Hi Kurt!" Blaine said, bouncing a little in his chair.
Kurt smiled broadly in return, glad to see Blaine was having a good day. "Good afternoon to you, kind sir," he said. "How might you be this fine spring day?"
Blaine laughed, looking out the window Kurt knew was to the left of Blaine's desk. "I don't know about 'fine spring day'; it might be spring, but it looks pretty wet and miserable outside to me." He looked back at Kurt and said, all shameless and smiling, "But it's much better now that I've seen your pretty face."
If Kurt was perfectly honest, one of his favourite things about finding stability in their separate lives had been the return of flirty Blaine, who was back like Kurt hadn't seen since they were both at Dalton and Blaine had been utterly oblivious. It spoke of Blaine being comfortable in his own place in a way Kurt was worried he wouldn't see until Blaine finally got to college, wherever it may be.
"Someone's in a good mood today," Kurt said by way of avoiding reply, and Blaine's smile split a little wider.
"Yeah, I am - well, I mean, I was in an okay mood today already, but now you're here and I can tell you it's an even better one." He paused for dramatic effect, and then said in a rush, "I got my audition invitation letters this week. From a bunch of colleges."
"Oh my god, Blaine, that's amazing!" Kurt said, jumping up a little in his seat himself and clapping his hands. "Which colleges?"
"So far I've gotten letters from Elon, CCM and NYADA. Both schools at NYU have requested that I just send an audition video, so I'm waiting on Carnegie Melon and OSU now."
Kurt babbled something about that being so great, and Blaine grinned at him for another moment before his face sobered a little. "Wait, I'm sorry, I should have asked - have you heard from NYADA as well?"
Kurt nodded and reached to the side of his desk, where his own NYADA audition invitation sat on the table. "It arrived in the mail this week. Looks like fate's decided to give me a second chance after all."
Blaine launched off into an excited babble about their audition songs, and how much preparation Kurt thought might be too much, and had Kurt asked any of the people from NYADA about their own audition experiences yet? Kurt tried to be enthused about it all, but let part of his mind drift elsewhere.
Truth be told, Kurt had very nearly not reapplied for NYADA this year. It had taken more than one long conversation with a surprisingly supportive Sebastian before he'd decided to bother filling out the form and sending it off. Kurt knew that it was silly to give up on his dreams so easily, but when everything was taken into account, it had almost not seemed worth the strain of applying all over again. For starters, Kurt had indeed been talking to some of the NYADA boys about auditions - friendly, mindless chatter to pass the time in Callbacks before Heat got a good crowd and sneaking cheap drinks if one of the bartenders was willing to not check IDs too closely. Everyone he spoke to had had similar, terrifying audition experiences to Kurt's own, and had been left with equally little feedback at the end of it about what was and wasn't good. Not many people had much to say on the idea of Kurt reapplying except one, who winced when Kurt had mentioned the idea in passing.
"I'd think twice about it, man," he'd said, regarding Kurt with a hint of sympathy. "I mean, it sounds like Tibideaux likes you from what you've told me, so maybe if there wasn't really anything wrong, and there just wasn't space for you, it's worth trying again. But if there was something she actually didn't like with you - and trust me, there's something she doesn't like about almost everyone, even perfect pets like Brody - she's not keen on giving second chances on anything other than her terms. I've seen too many people fuck up and grovel for a chance to fix it, only to be humiliated, to encourage you."
And on top of that daunting advice, came the consideration of Kurt's job at Vogue.com. When Kurt had asked Isabelle to write him an extra reference for the application, discussing the success of the makeover video and Kurt's general work ethic, Isabelle had taken the time to sit him down and give him a warning. She'd tried to phrase it as nicely as possible, but ultimately she'd explained that if Kurt was going to study full time, then there wouldn't be a place for him at Vogue. Studying part time, Kurt could probably keep up the work hours to hold his job, but the hours NYADA would demand of him, and at inflexible times? Despite Kurt's initial affront, he knew that Isabelle had been as nice as possible about it, and appreciated being given such a clear choice. Kurt enjoyed throwing himself into the fashion world - loved it, at times - and it was hard to pass up such an incredible entry, one that might never come his way so easily again. Not to mention, he loved being self-reliant now that his job was a paying one, and going back to living off supplements from his dad, ones Kurt always felt a little guilty receiving, was not something he was keen to revisit.
It had eventually been Sebastian, of all people, who'd talked Kurt into applying, despite it adding to his "long list of gay clichés" that Sebastian took frequent opportunities to mock Kurt for. After spending awhile talking the issue around in circles, to varying degrees of Sebastian's patience, the other boy had eventually said, "Look, Kurt. It's not a death sentence to your fashion career if you choose to attend NYADA. Say you apply, and you get in. Taking one year to try NYADA out and keep your options open is going to hurt you a lot less in the long run than cutting yourself off from something before you're entirely sure you're ready to let it go."
Sebastian had stopped, but Kurt had merely waved his hand, gesturing for Sebastian to continue, knowing the boy had more to say. Sebastian had sighed before continuing, saying, "Look, don't take this the wrong way. But you never, ever take the path of least resistance. You always have to make life as difficult for yourself as possible. And if you give up on the Broadway thing so quickly? One day, whether your fashion career is successful or not, you're going to hate yourself for it. On the other hand, if you try NYADA, even just for one year? It'll be harder to forge your career without another job like Vogue falling into your lap, yeah. But it's doable, and knowing you, you'll probably enjoy the challenge, even if you bitch out every single person around you the entire time."
Kurt had slapped Sebastian for the tease at the time, but had taken the advice to heart. Sebastian rarely gave speeches like that, so Kurt had the feeling Sebastian felt relatively strongly on the matter - though Kurt hadn't known why at the time. In retrospect, the thought of why Sebastian might care so much made Kurt smile.
"So where's your audition?" Blaine asked, drawing Kurt back into the conversation properly.
"In the NYADA concert hall," replied Kurt, trying to muster up some enthusiasm, at least for Blaine's sake.
"Oh wow," Blaine replied. "That will be spectacular. Getting a preview on what the next four years of your life are going to look like, hey?"
Kurt smiled vaguely, not having the heart to correct Blaine right now. "What about you?"
Blaine laughed lightly. "I think the number of, ah, characters at McKinley scared Carmen Tibideaux off last year. This year they've decided that all the Ohio applicants have to travel to Cincinnati for their audition, so it's going to be at a high school there."
Kurt, wanting to end this particular topic of conversation, said fondly, "Blaine, you have to be the only person our age who calls bat shit crazy people 'characters'. You grandpa."
"I'm just old fashioned, and you love it," replied Blaine. And, well, Kurt certainly couldn't argue there.
"Speaking of people who are old fashioned," Kurt said slowly, drawing it out, "how's Thomas?"
Blaine blushed slightly and said, "He's fine. Still sweet, but I, ah, don't think the spark is there. We're still hanging out, but it's mostly platonic."
Thomas was a junior Warbler from Dalton that Blaine had met a few months ago, and tentatively told Kurt about in February. Blaine had been very hesitant to tell Kurt anything at first, especially with their deal to talk over the summer about getting back together; but Kurt had been slowly becoming lost in Sebastian by that point, and had found that he honestly hadn't minded hearing about someone he knew was only ever going to be temporary.
"Aw, that's a shame."
"He had plenty to live up to, I guess," Blaine replied, looking at Kurt up through his eyelashes.
"Be kind to the boy is all that I ask," Kurt said. "Charmed-by-Anderson Syndrome is one that's difficult to cure in teenage boys, or so I've heard."
Blaine laughed along with Kurt, and then fixed him with a more serious stare. "You're in a very good mood today, too," he said. "What's got you so happy?"
Kurt froze, not having the slightest idea of what to say. For all that he had encouraged Blaine to open up to him about the boys he was meeting, Blaine had not done the same, and Blaine's request to spare him the details back in January was still at the forefront of his mind.
"There's someone special, isn't there?" Blaine eventually asked, when Kurt never replied. "There's another boy that put that smile on your face."
Kurt nodded, and then said, "There is someone. But I haven't told anyone else yet. It only happened today."
Blaine regarded Kurt, eyes slowly brightening with an odd mix of wistfulness and resignation. "But it's been coming for awhile, hasn't it? I know we haven't been talking as much as we should, but I could kind of see it coming. Someone's been making you... stronger, I guess. More sure of yourself. For at least the last couple of months."
Kurt started. He hadn't realised, as he'd been observing that development in Blaine, Blaine had been seeing it in him. "I didn't think it was ever going to happen," Kurt replied. "I thought he was just going to be a friend. But, it turns out that I was wrong."
Blaine's mouth twisted a little bitterly. "I guess that's my fault. I was the one that taught you to never, ever read into anything, after all."
"Oh, honey, no." Kurt rushed to reassure Blaine, but the shorter boy just held up a hand.
"It's alright, Kurt. Do you want to tell me about him?"
Kurt seriously thought about it. Now was the time he should probably do it - no matter how things were going to look in the future, Blaine probably deserved to know that it was Sebastian. But for some reason, with all the history and mess between the three of them, he just couldn't force the words out. "I don't think that's a good idea."
Blaine asked, "Is it because I won't like what I hear, or because you don't think I can handle hearing anything at all?" The question, which could have so easily sounded like an accusation, somehow didn't. They always did their best never to judge each other, and mostly succeeded.
"A bit of both," Kurt eventually replied.
"Okay," Blaine said, accepting Kurt's word without probing, and wasn't that twisting the guilt in further. "Just - and please, give me an honest answer, even if you think I won't like it or it'll be hard or anything - please tell me: is it serious?"
"It could be," Kurt replied. "But he's leaving New York at the end of the year, at least for awhile, so it's too early to say."
Again, Blaine accepted the words with grace. "I hope he keeps making you happy," Blaine said, and then turned the conversation to idle chatter if they'd never been discussing anything heavier at all.
***
Kurt and Sebastian fell into the rhythm of their relationship as easily and unexpectedly as they'd fallen into their friendship. It changed so much, but the changes came so easily, to Kurt at least, that he never once lifted his head from the thrilling, crazy rush that was being Sebastian Smythe's boyfriend.
People accepted their relationship with varying degrees of ease, though to Kurt's disgruntlement (and even more Sebastian's, Kurt suspected) no one was entirely happy for them except Brody - and even then, Kurt was fairly sure it was only because he now spent more time at Sebastian's than he did in the apartment. Rachel and Burt had been nearly intractable in their uneasiness, even knowing how close Sebastian and Kurt had been coming in the time before they'd officially become a couple. Their unease was compounded when Kurt had quietly asked them not to tell Blaine who was dating, and even further compounded just about every time Kurt and Sebastian fought - which was fairly often, Kurt freely admitted, especially as Sebastian slogged through his mid-semester exams. What Rachel and Burt didn't see, though, was that almost every fight now ended with them grinning madly at each other, followed by activities of a less than G-rated nature, and Kurt loved every minute of it.
That was another thing almost no one understood - exactly why Kurt loved their relationship, as wild and violently passionate as it was. They all seemed to assume, whether they'd known Kurt in Lima or not, that he wanted another person like Blaine, someone comfortable and courteous. No one seemed to see what Kurt could so clearly, that the storm that Sebastian had put in his head now spread out to encompass the boy himself, that their relationship was the storm, and that Kurt felt most alive when tossed and thrown about amongst the thunder and the lightning. Sebastian challenged Kurt in a way no one ever had before, and it was thrilling and absolutely everything Kurt had never known he'd needed, but had become hooked on more quickly than he could blink.
Continuing the line of people who disapproved for one reason or another was Charlie, and all the NYADA boys who came with him. Because, as wild as their relationship was, both he and Sebastian were determined to keep it private. While once upon a time Kurt would have gladly flaunted his relationship, both of them were far too possessive to share much of their limited time together. So the longer that they were together, the less they went out clubbing; especially after the second time they did so as a couple, when Charlie had made his ritual pass at Kurt, complete with trying to steal a kiss, and Sebastian had nearly gutted him. It was the only time Kurt had seen Charlie looking anything other than amused.
A month to the day into their relationship, Kurt was at Sebastian's apartment, crawling through his unfairly huge CD collection. Kurt's audition for NYADA was in a week, and as unsure as he'd originally been about the whole process, now that Kurt had committed to it he was almost unbearably nervous about what was to come. Sebastian was on the other side of the room, studying some sort of chemistry Kurt didn't even want to try to understand, but when Kurt fell sideways onto the sofa with a sigh he closed his textbooks and came to Kurt, crawling up to lie beside him.
"What's wrong?" Sebastian asked, sliding one hand under Kurt's head to cradle it. "Can't find anything appropriately hideous enough to please a musical theatre purist?"
Kurt pulled an indelicate face at Sebastian and then closed his eyes, sighing again, even more dramatically than before. "I have absolutely no idea what to pick. I put everything on the line for my last audition and it didn't pay off, so it's almost impossible to choose a direction this time."
"You know Rachel showed me the video she took of your audition, that time you were taking forever to change out of that monstrosity of buckles," Sebastian teased, sliding backwards a little to dodge the smack that he had learned almost always came after a comment like that. "And I managed to pick my brains up off the floor long enough to see something other than the amazing sight of you in those gold pants." Sebastian mouthed along the side of Kurt's neck for a moment, making him whine; it had only taken Sebastian a week to figure out exactly how to dismantle Kurt entirely with his hands, mouth and cock. After a month, it only took a touch or two for him to work Kurt up. When Kurt started to grind against his boyfriend, though, Sebastian pulled back with a smirk. "I think you proved you can do the showbiz sparkle as well as NYADA could possibly want. So I think this time, you should try to show them that you can kick ass at a different kind of performance."
The confidence Sebastian had in Kurt - that it was a given to him that Kurt was more than a one-trick pony - had never ceased to warm Kurt. But tonight, not even it was enough to soothe his mounting panic. "Like what?" Kurt asked. "That performance I gave Carmen last year - that was me at my best. I honestly have no idea what else I have to give that could top that."
"Come on, babe, you're letting your anxiety blind you," Sebastian said gently, grabbing at one of Kurt's hands and lacing their fingers together. "You can think this through. What's the opposite of all that shiny, polished showbiz shit?"
"Rawness?" Kurt answered tentatively, feeling rather like a kindergarten student being guided through some basic problem.
"Exactly," Sebastian replied.
"Sebastian, you of all people should know how stupid it is to try to tell me to be 'raw', to lose the polish. I wouldn't even know how to start going about it."
"No. See, because I'm such a spectacular boyfriend who knows you so well," Sebastian said, smirking, "I know there's an exception to that. All that polish can disappear in a second."
"Somehow, I don't think that you sticking three fingers in me and making me beg right before I go on stage is going to help," Kurt said dryly, barely even blushing.
"Ooh, feeling patronised makes you crass. I'll have to remember that." Sebastian leaned closer to Kurt, so their foreheads were almost touching. "That's not what I meant, though. When you're singing about someone you really care about? You beam out emotions like a lighthouse. Even when you're singing along to your iPod while cooking or going through that ridiculous skincare regimen, I can still tell when a song has reminded you of someone important, because your whole face... not softens, exactly. Just shifts. You can't help but give away everything going on in that overfilled heart."
Sebastian was starting to look uncomfortable with how unexpectedly sappy his talk had turned, so Kurt took pity on him and drew him into a quick, dirty kiss. That was the trick with Sebastian - let him fall into these moments of emotion or honesty before he'd realised he was there, and then distract him before he could freak out about it.
Kurt broke off the kiss a short while later to ask archly, "So I sing about someone, then? And I don't suppose you have any suggestions as to who."
"Me, of course." Sebastian pasted on a quick, smug grin, taking the out Kurt offered him.
"Of course," Kurt replied. "So, what, oh my man I love him so, he'll never know?" Kurt trilled. "All my life is just despair-"
Sebastian, who had pulled himself off of the sofa, grabbed a nearby pillow and threw it at Kurt. "Please. Your life's been fucking ecstasy since I crashed it."
"Hm, still reserving judgement on that one," Kurt replied, watching curiously as Sebastian hunted through the racks of CDs, eventually pulling out one about mid-way down the wall. He returned to Kurt, not bothering to sit back down, and handed over the jewel case.
As soon as Kurt saw the cover he laughed, knowing there could only be one song Sebastian meant. "You want me to sing the song that was playing the first time we slept together."
"Yep," Sebastian said, looking all too pleased with himself. "Just think about it."
Oh, and Kurt was thinking about it - that night, three days after they'd officially gotten together, sitting on that very couch and arguing about the finer points of their music tastes. Sebastian had gotten downright derisive about not only Kurt's love for show tunes in general, but had launched attacks on the types of songs Kurt listened to within the genre; in retaliation, Kurt had pointed out that there was probably a reason half the bands Sebastian listened to remained undiscovered by any major record label.
Like most of their arguments, it had devolved very quickly in the most blissful of ways, and they had moved to the bedroom, chests heaving, hands already fumbling at belts and zippers. The music of Sebastian's iPod, still on shuffle, had followed them, and had provided an unexpected soundtrack to the moment. Kurt had tuned it out for large chunks of time, completely unable to focus on anything but the stretches of skin before him or the spiral of keening lust Sebastian's hands and tongue had put him on. For just a moment as Sebastian had fingered Kurt open, Kurt had gasped, choking on the air and his desperation, and had heard the wild rush of Drumming Song playing around them - but that's not what Sebastian wanted him to sing.
No, it was another one, one that had played later, when Sebastian had first pushed into Kurt. He'd braced himself with one arm against the headboard, looked down at Kurt and kissed him fiercely. Then he'd stroked his fingers down Kurt's neck, and then eased himself in - and Kurt had thrown his head back, feeling Sebastian's intrusion shooting down his legs and up his sides to tingle in his fingers. And Sebastian had been everywhere, and then he'd started to move. And on that drag out, he'd opened Kurt up, splitting his mind and heart until they were gaping, and in had rushed this song - an atom to atom oh can you feel it on me love, a pattern to pattern oh can you see it on me love - and Sebastian had sealed the music in with his kiss.
Long after Kurt stopped feeling sore, after they'd had sex a dozen times more that had wrecked Kurt in so many different ways, the song, Strangeness and Charm, had lingered in his mind.
"Oh my god," Kurt said, looking down at the CD in his hand. "You picked my audition song for me."
"Yep," Sebastian repeated, turning away towards the kitchen.
"You picked my audition song for me, and you picked the song we first fucked to."
"Yes, I did. You'll have to shorten the song, but you'll be amazing."
Kurt got up and followed Sebastian, wrapping his arms around Sebastian's middle from behind to stop him in his tracks. "You are the most ridiculous human being on the planet, and I have no idea why we're together."
"Well, babe, it's like I explained to you on that very first morning here in New York," Sebastian drawled. "There was always something burning pretty hot between us. And once we got our bitching out of the way..."
"Hah. You just admitted to bitching."
"What can I say?" Sebastian said with a shrug, turning around to face Kurt, kissing him lightly. "You bring out the worst in me. Plus," he then added, "it's actually pure chemistry."
"Pray tell," Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You remember collision theory from high school? It's just like they teach you. Two molecules react when they hit each other in the right direction, with enough force to break their current bonds. It's science, babe."
Kurt stared at his boyfriend for a moment before dissolving into helpless laughter, hiding his face in the crook of Sebastian's neck. "Pre-med is turning you into the world's biggest dork," he said. "Keep it up, though. The worse you get the less competition I have."
Sebastian scooped Kurt up with a growl, crossing the room in seconds and depositing Kurt, a little ungracefully, back on the couch. He climbed over Kurt a second later and pressed him down, biting and sucking at Kurt's neck while playing with the buttons on his shirt. He claimed Kurt's lips in a hard kiss, and then muttered into his mouth, "As if there was ever any competition."
And he kissed Kurt again and Kurt fell, fell, fell.
***
Sebastian and Kurt were lying cuddled together one lazy Saturday afternoon at the beginning of May. Sebastian had pulled an all-nighter trying to get an assignment done before the nine am deadline, and Kurt was slowly coming off the high of his NYADA audition the day before, so they were content to drift in and out of consciousness on the whim of the near-summer air. As long as they were still together.
Truth be told, Sebastian wouldn't have had to have pulled the all-nighter had he not gone with Kurt to keep him calm and watch the audition, not that he'd told Kurt that. It had been entirely worth sitting at the computer until five in the morning, leaving a sleep-warm boyfriend in his bed, to see the performance Kurt had given. Kurt had been stunning, to no one's surprise but his own. Sebastian was more than a little smug that his guess had paid off - from the look on that Carmen woman's face as they had left the concert hall, that kind of rawness had been exactly what she had been looking for from Kurt, and had not expected to find. Sebastian knew without a doubt that Kurt would be offered a place at NYADA next year.
But even seeing Kurt at his shining performance best yesterday didn't change the fact that this was Sebastian's favourite kind of moment, just as they were now. Kurt nuzzled a little closer, rubbing his cheek shamelessly against Sebastian's shirt, and Sebastian's chest tightened (he refused to pinpoint it to his heart, because yeah he might have a boyfriend now but he wasn't a fucking sap). He knew that he wasn't the only one to have ever seen Kurt like this, that there had been someone before him that Kurt had curled up with in nothing but a thin, white undershirt and jeans, but it didn't change the softness of Kurt's skin, or the warmth in his eyes as he cracked them open occasionally just to let them fall on Sebastian's face.
It didn't change the fact that Kurt was the first person to make the silence something good and comforting.
Kurt stirred, sliding his palms over Sebastian's shoulders and back again, smiling softly as he shifted himself higher. Kurt's cheek pressed to Sebastian's neck for a moment, where he paused again as if to listen to the breath in Sebastian's throat; and then Kurt pushed himself up onto an elbow to hover over Sebastian, face to face. Sebastian didn't flinch when Kurt's fingers came up to Sebastian's temple and stroked, fluttering their way gently down to his chin.
Every day, Kurt was teaching Sebastian. If anyone else had dared to try something like that, they would have been slapped away and verbally destroyed before their fingertips ever made contact with the skin of his temple. But that was the guy who hadn't known how to be a boyfriend, and he was learning now. Maybe not about everything, because shitty things like 'talking about his feelings' never got any easier, but these wordless demonstrations? The giving and taking and displaying? He had this.
Still silent, Kurt bent down over Sebastian's face, and when Sebastian's eyes fluttered closed to better breathe Kurt in, tiny kisses were touched to his eyelids. Sebastian didn't open his eyes and felt Kurt move instead, until a equally tiny kiss was pressed at the hollow of his throat and then at the point of the v in the neck of his t-shirt.
And then Kurt laid his head back on Sebastian's chest, mostly centred but slightly off to the left, and Sebastian choked so harshly and suddenly that he was surprised he didn't jolt the boy off of his chest.
Sebastian closed his eyes and breathed. Breathe, breathe, release, relief. Breathe in the smell of Kurt's hair. Sebastian tried not to panic.
And, after only a few more breaths, found it shockingly easy not to.
Because it might have only just hit him, but being in love with Kurt wasn't something to panic about.
Sebastian looked down at Kurt's face, still smiling a little even though pale eyelids were fluttering shut over blue eyes again, and watched as Kurt surrendered back to the warmth and the doze.
***
Saturday was, for Kurt, a perfect example of how his relationship with Sebastian, and the boy himself, could go from one extreme to another in less than twenty four hours.
The day had started, at least for Kurt, when Sebastian's previous day ended - at five am, with Sebastian crawling into bed after finally finishing his bioethics assignment, dragging Kurt towards his body with little regard for Kurt's sleep. It was a rough way to wake up, but in the sweetest way possible, knowing that all that Sebastian wanted at the end of an exhausting day was to fit Kurt into his arms, even if they wouldn't stay that way in sleep for long. In fact it wasn't long after that Sebastian had dropped into a very deep sleep and Kurt had crawled away, well and truly awake now, to contemplate New York from the bedroom window as the sun rose.
Sebastian had stirred at a reasonable morning hour, and Kurt had made him breakfast as a silent thank you for everything - convincing him to go to NYADA, helping him pick an audition song, and even putting off the assignment to the last minute to come to Kurt's audition, no matter how much he protested that he would have stayed up late doing the assignment anyway. He'd even let Sebastian crack a few inappropriate jokes about Kurt being a well trained houseboy, figuring that Sebastian had earned a few easy points for his side of the tally.
The afternoon had dragged them back to bed, and for all that Kurt knew he was, at heart, just a silly romantic, it had been one of those afternoons that would be burned into his spirit for a very long time to come. Not because of the significance of anything that was said and done - all they'd really done was cuddle and sleep on and off in the afternoon light for hours - but because of the look on Sebastian's face. If at any point Kurt had thought that maybe there were remnants of the hardened, unsympathetic boy from their senior year left in Sebastian as he was now, it would have all been washed away a hundredfold over the course of those simple hours. Because no one could have a trace of ill will in them who looked so terribly vulnerable to another's touch. And there were so many things that could have tainted the time - worries about the fact that the term would be over in a few short weeks, and that Trinity College lay in wait for Sebastian beyond the summer's sunset - but none of them had been let into the air between the two boys, too full of the things Sebastian could never find the words to say or feel the self-worth to hear from Kurt.
But here, now, in that deep kind of night that was neither yesterday or tomorrow, was the other extreme of it all. Kurt wasn't sure when he woke, only that he eventually became aware of Sebastian twitching beside him, sleeping but still flinching away from something. Just as Kurt was preparing to shake Sebastian awake, not sure exactly what to do because Kurt had never seen his boyfriend anything but calm in his sleep before, tears started to leak out of Sebastian's clenched-shut eyes. And Kurt could feel Sebastian wake in the sudden stiff-stillness of his now familiar body, but still Sebastian's eyes were tight shut, and still the tears came.
"Sebastian?" Kurt whispered, and stroked a hand down the side of Sebastian's face. Sebastian flinched harshly at the touch on instinct, but then grabbed at Kurt's hand before he could yank it away. He held strong onto Kurt's fingers for a moment, pressing them against his lips, and said hoarsely, "How on earth am I supposed to atone for all of that?"
Kurt was stunned into inaction at first, stuck in a memory of the Sebastian from months ago who'd asked Kurt the same question in just the same pleading tone but with only half the desperation. Kurt had thought Sebastian had let go of the concept since, because he never spoke about it. Apparently not.
"Did you dream?"
"I did," Sebastian replied, his voice becoming jagged as his breath turned to gasps. "All those things that I did, and I want to play god. How can I ever save lives with pictures like this in my head? I'm the one that created them."
Kurt was starting to get scared. He wished Sebastian would open his eyes, just give Kurt an in, because Sebastian shut off like this was impossible to deal with and he'd never seen his boyfriend so upset before. "What pictures are there?" he asked, trying to make his voice soothing, and stroked Sebastian's face, over the lines of tightness on his forehead and around his eyes.
"David Karofsky, swinging from the rafters."
Kurt's blood turned to ice. And then he yanked Sebastian against his body as hard as he could as if maybe somehow the cold in both of them would add together to make something warmer. "Oh baby, you made up for that so long ago."
"A couple of charity baskets and a dedicated glee club performance doesn't atone for something like that." Sebastian still wouldn't open his eyes, keeping them screwed shut so sightly it looked painful. He looked almost as if he were stuck in some horrible trance, still more in his nightmare than the waking world.
Kurt bit his lip, indecisive, and whispered, "One throwaway line didn't make David do what he did. But are you really still looking for atonement?"
"I am, I am, but I don't know how to find it. You're my greatest atonement but it's not enough."
"What do you mean I'm your greatest atonement?" Kurt asked, suddenly stiffening himself.
"You're everything good I can do in this world," Sebastian whispered, breath starting to calm again.
Kurt wished he could say the same about his own breath. "Is that all I am, Sebastian? Just a drawn-out form of making right everything you feel bad about seem alright? Because you're making a kid you picked on in high school happy?" It was the distress in Kurt's own voice that seemed to finally drag Sebastian out of his own, and before he could feel guilty about that, hands were on Kurt's face.
"Oh god, babe, no, no," Sebastian rushed out, eyes now wide open. "Not at all."
"Really?" Kurt asked. "Because every time I've gotten you at your most honest - blind drunk, still half asleep - it's what you talk to me about. Atoning."
"Because sometimes it seems like you're the only thing I can do right. You're the only person I've touched where I think I've done more good than harm. But that doesn't mean I'm trying to use you to make up for everything else," Sebastian replied, digging one hand into his own hair.
"Okay, shhh, I believe you. I trust you. I'm not freaking out. I'm sorry," Kurt said, grabbing Sebastian's hands and bringing them up to be kissed. "But Sebastian, you being so fixated on this idea of atonement worries me."
"It's not like I can shake it. Trust me, I've tried. Nothing works. You can't run from it. I'm still trying," Sebastian said weakly. He sounded like he was trying to throw his walls back up but they were crumbling back down again with every word Kurt heard.
"Nobody could possibly atone for everything they feel bad about," Kurt told him. "I don't think you need to atone for anything. But if you feel like you need something, then I don't think atonement's it. I think what you're looking for is absolution." Kurt went back to stroking his fingers across Sebastian's forehead, using the backs of them this time.
Sebastian soaked up the touch, and then he eventually asked, "Is there a difference?"
"Of course," Kurt said, locking eyes with his boyfriend through the darkness. "You're still trying to pay for the things you've done somehow, when all you really need is forgiveness. And that's free."
"I still don't know how to find that either, though." Sebastian turned his face a little more into Kurt's hand.
"I think, if you asked them, most people you're looking for forgiveness from have already given it," Kurt said, moving his hands so his thumbs were now gently stroking across Sebastian's eyebrows.
"I can always hope, I suppose," Sebastian said, his eyes starting to droop under Kurt's ministration. They flicked open again, though. "Hey, Kurt?"
"Mmm?"
"For what it's worth? You're... I... I love you."
Kurt gently ducked his head down to kiss at the v in Sebastian's t-shirt, then at the hollow of his neck, and then, as Sebastian fluttered his eyes shut in anticipation, each of his browned eyelids. "It's worth everything. And I love you too."
And where they'd both been falling, falling, falling, they stopped, having found each other in the tumble down.
Part Five