A/N: Written for the Kurtoberfest prompt 'Friday the 13th'.
"Today's the day!" Sebastian practically sings as he helps Kurt down to the U-Haul with a box of his things.
"I know." Kurt rolls his eyes, dodging Sebastian as he leaps ahead of him to put the box he's carrying on the truck first. "You've only said it about a hundred times since this morning."
"I know, I know…" Sebastian finally manages to calm down a hair, looking guilty in the process. "I'm just…excited, you know?"
"I guess." Kurt shrugs, putting his box down beside Sebastian's, sliding it an inch over until the two touch.
"Oh, I…" Sebastian stutters, really looking at Kurt's face for the first time in hours. "It's not…I don't want you to think I'm super excited about getting rid of you or anything."
"No, of course not." Kurt pivots, heading back to the front door as a pair of movers from inside Sebastian's house bring out Kurt's Chippendale dresser. "Why would I ever think that?"
Sebastian sighs. There he goes, sticking his foot in it again. He grabs Kurt by the arms, pulling him out of the way of another mover bringing out a wardrobe box full of Kurt's clothes.
"I'm sorry about acting a bit over-the-top. It's not about you, alright? You've been great. Really. I mean, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have gotten through this, and it just…it feels like a huge weight off my shoulders, you know?"
"Yeah" - Kurt puts a hand over Sebastian's where it holds his arm - "I know."
"Look, my offer stands. You can totally stay."
"No, no." Kurt shakes his head. "I think it's time. This is over, right? We need to move on with our lives. Both of us."
Sebastian nods, but he suddenly doesn't look as on board with that as Kurt thinks he should.
"You have big plans, right?" Kurt asks, clapping a hand on Sebastian's shoulder, one less intimate than the two caressing Kurt's biceps, thumbs rubbing up and down his skin over his shirt. "You're heading back to Europe? Visiting the old haunts?"
"Yeah." Sebastian subconsciously leans a cheek against the back of Kurt's hand. Well, so much for not intimate. "You could…"
"There's no place for me there," Kurt cuts in, anticipating Sebastian's suggestion, one he's already made countless times, "and it would be too depressing for me to stay in this big old house by myself."
Sebastian's eyes search Kurt's face, but his gaze is farther off, like it might be a hundred miles away…or scanning back through time. "Well, you've got plans, too, right?" Sebastian points out, squeezing Kurt's arm. It's funny how they always seem to need to touch each other. Habit, Kurt guesses, and habits are hard to break. "I mean, if I have to hear about how you're off to cover Fashion Week for Vogue again, I think I'm going to lose my mind."
"Yup." Kurt breaks free from Sebastian's gaze, and his grasp, with a single step back. He looks down at the watch on his wrist, checking the time. It's really just an excuse, though. Kurt knows what time it is. Same time it's been since he got up this morning. Time to go. "And if I don't get going soon, I'll never get moved into my new place before my dad shows up at the airport."
"R-right," Sebastian says. "Right," he repeats, this time stronger. "Well, I'd better run back upstairs and grab another box of your shit. I mean, you only have about sixteen dozen more. And I've seen your new place. I don't know where the hell you're gonna keep it all."
"Yeah, well, you bought me half that stuff, so you're partially to blame."
Kurt watches Sebastian weed through the movers, taking the front steps two at a time to get back inside, and with every step he takes, Kurt's heart falls.
It started on Friday the 13th, shortly after Kurt broke up with Blaine. Friday the 13th had always been kind of a good luck day for Kurt in little ways: he'd find money on the street, a coupon for a free meal at his favorite restaurant wedged between his bills and junk mail, the Prada boots he'd wanted forever would go on clearance and be available in his size.
On this particular Friday the 13th, he was sitting at his breakfast table, trying to figure out how he was going to pay for rent and school now that three of his roommates were gone when Sebastian showed up on his doorstep.
Great, Kurt thought when he saw Sebastian standing there, looking as stuck up and smug as ever. For a second, Kurt feared that Sebastian might have bought the building, and he was there to tell Kurt personally, and with immense satisfaction, that he was kicking him out. Just when I really need it, my lucky streak ends.
Except, it hadn't, in a sense.
Sebastian Smythe was having financial problems, too. A clause in the trust fund his grandparents had set up for him - the one he always bragged about and threw in their faces back in Ohio - said that in order for him to get the full balance of his inheritance, he would need to be established in a stable relationship for a period of no less than a year. Seemed simple enough to Kurt. Seemed like the kind of thing that could have already happened for Sebastian (in a carnal sense, at least), or that a loophole could quickly take care of. But seeing as Sebastian had ended up at Kurt's door, the last place in hell Kurt would ever imagine him showing his face, those obviously weren't solutions. But then…
"Why me?" Kurt asked, letting Sebastian tell him his tale of woe from the hallway since he had no intention of letting the man in his loft.
"Because you hate me," Sebastian said, and even though it sounded sarcastic, it also didn't.
"And that makes sense how?"
"Because it means you'll stay out of my way. You won't mess with my plans. You won't want to have anything to do with me, and I sure as hell don't want anything to do with you…although…" Sebastian leaned up against the door and looked Kurt over with the lecherous smile Kurt remembered him reserving for Blaine, and even though Kurt and Blaine were over – dead, done, and over – Kurt felt himself bristle with a renewed hatred of the time and energy Sebastian put into trying to split them up, "if you wanted to turn this into an enemies with benefits situation, I might be amenable to that."
Kurt had snarled, taken a step back to slam the door in Sebastian's face, when Sebastian found the only words that could stop him.
"I'll pay you," he said, putting a hand up to block the door. "Three million for the year, unclaimed, untaxable income, plus expenses."
Kurt narrowed his eyelids, peering at Sebastian through the crack in the door.
"Do you even have that kind of money?" Kurt jabbed.
"I will," Sebastian said with an appreciative smirk for Kurt's fiery temper, "if you agree to our arrangement."
Three million. That sounded about right for what Sebastian was proposing, and it was way more money than Kurt would probably make in the next ten years, even if he did somehow break into Broadway or get a paid position at Vogue. The stack of bills behind him, only a portion of the ones he'd gotten that day, sitting ominously on the kitchen table, waiting for him to return and bitterly tear them to pieces without looking at the ever increasing amounts due, nagged at Kurt to take the offer. Put his pride aside, and anything else he had left, and leap into bed (figuratively) with Sebastian Smythe. And as loudly as they taunted him with his own failures over the past year – failure to get a job better than the diner, failure to keep his boyfriend, or the people who were supposed to be his friends - Kurt wasn't ready to concede yet.
But he was getting close.
"Expenses?" Kurt asked. "What kind of expenses?"
"A car, for one," Sebastian said, his smirk becoming a sincere grin. A handsome grin, actually. "Travel, a new wardrobe (hopefully, he muttered as he glared at Kurt's current state of dress), whatever you need."
"School?" Kurt asked, since the matter of his tuition bill was the largest of those banshees lying on the table.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow.
"You're still in school?"
"Of course, I'm still in school! Aren't you?"
"Nah," Sebastian responded so flippantly, Kurt was tempted to slam the door in his face anyway, even if he would regret it later. "Why bother?"
"Yeah, well, I guess if I were you, I'd say fuck school, too." Kurt looked at Sebastian's face – his pleading face. And even if other details of this afternoon become muddied in his mind, he'll remember that look forever, because amid the lines of impatience and annoyance and desperation, he looked…human. In high school, Kurt didn't think of Sebastian as just another teenager. His interactions with him were too far wrapped together with feelings of angst and irritation and loathing. Sebastian represented things in Kurt's life that were a constant struggle. He was Rachel Berry every time she got a solo that Kurt felt he deserved. He was Dave Karofsky and Azimio Adams, making his life a living hell when all Kurt wanted to do was get through the day without wanting to kill himself. He was Santana Lopez, cutting him down left and right for the simple matter of who he was to cover up for her own insecurities. He was every teacher who never seemed to notice that he was in pain. He was his father's heart, having the nerve to become weak and threaten Kurt's only remaining sense of security when cancer had already claimed his mother. So, Sebastian Smythe was an amalgam. He wasn't human…until now. And that's probably why Kurt gave in. Because life is a bitch, but Kurt Hummel didn't have to be. "Alright," Kurt said. "I'll do it."
"Great," Sebastian said with far less enthusiasm than Kurt had expected. "Grab your coat. We need to go meet with the lawyers A.S.A.P."
"Wait…what?"
Sebastian took advantage of Kurt's surprised state to shove the door open and walk inside his loft.
"The lawyers," he repeated, examining Kurt's things, judging every article, every tidbit gathered in Kurt's life as worthless with a single glance. "We'll talk about it after you get changed."
"Changed?" Kurt looked down at the outfit he had on – not one of his most fashionable, but he hadn't been expecting anyone. "What's wrong with this?"
"Everything," Sebastian said simply. "Now, like I said, we'll talk about it after you get changed."
Kurt had thought Sebastian's talk of lawyers (plural) was an exaggeration, but it wasn't. They spent three hours that afternoon in the office of Harven, Smith, and Baxter (with Harven, Smith, and Baxter, along with about seven interns, gophers, and random associates) talking through the stipulations behind Sebastian receiving the bulk of his trust fund word for word – twice, so Kurt would understand, which he didn't, and everyone sitting at the cherry wood conference table, stifling snickers between clauses, knew it. Kurt started getting lost during some of the more complicated financial stuff, eventually ignored the speeches about how, "David and Lillian Smythe believed in the sanctity and importance of a healthy relationship deep in their hearts yada-yada-yada…" and focused on the things that frightened him most, wrapped up in words like fraud, fine, and imprisonment.
By the time they left, Kurt was ready to make a run for it, hop on a subway and never look back, but then he remembered that they were in Long Island, and that Sebastian was his ride. He also remembered that rent was due in a week, his gas and electricity were already overdue, and his tuition payment needed to be in by the middle of the month…or else.
Could he pretend to be in a relationship with Sebastian Smythe to pay off all his debt?
Normally, probably not.
He'd rather work at a hot dog stand, and moonlight performing dinner theater at a retirement home; sell everything he owned including, but not limited to, his plasma, hair, and teeth.
Okay, well, maybe not his hair.
But for three million plus whatever expenses he accrued (and Kurt knew he could accrue some pretty hefty expenses if he put his mind to it), he could probably give it a good enough shot. He might even take Sebastian up on his offer to sleep with him from time to time if Sebastian's was the only ass he was going to see for a while.
Yes. Kurt had sunk that low.
Even after having sat in that meeting, being talked at for hours, Kurt never realized how much he was going to earn that money. Getting hooked to Sebastian Smythe wasn't just an inconvenience; it was a career. There were weekly meetings at the Smythe Family Estate with a separate legal team that his grandparents had hired before their deaths, one that made Harven, Smith, and Baxter seem like snotty camp counselors in comparison.
If Kurt didn't believe in the existence of vampires before, he finally did.
That's when Kurt discovered that they didn't just have to be a couple. They had to get married. He could have slaughtered Sebastian for leaving that tiny detail out except that, when they were told, Sebastian seemed as clueless as Kurt was.
So screwing people over was a family trait then. Good to know.
Kurt couldn't help thinking on more than one occasion God help the poor schmuck that falls in love with Sebastian Smythe if this is what they have to go through.
Though, for love, it would be worth it, wouldn't it?
Kurt prayed that married meant they could get away with a small civil ceremony at city hall, maybe even elope in Las Vegas. But no such luck. They had to play the part and they had to look the part, which meant a huge wedding at Bathhouse Studios (which Kurt thought Sebastian may have chosen to be tongue in cheek), a lavish reception featuring the press, and a full page ad in three different newspapers…
…which meant that Kurt had to tell his father and Carole.
Carole was over-the-moon. A fairy tale New York wedding (even a fake one) sounded like a dream come true to her.
His father, however, was predictably not as excited.
After the actual wedding was over, Kurt thought for sure the hoopla would die down and they could go on from there as fake husbands, but the other inhabitants of Kurt's world weren't ready for that to be the end of it.
Kurt saw their wedding announcement posted on the Dalton Academy website, followed by a Congratulations to Alumni Kurt Hummel-Smythe! post on the McKinley High Facebook page. Even Vogue chimed in, printing up a full, two-page spread on the posh wedding of their own lowly intern to a New York socialite. As quiet as he had wanted to keep this, he wasn't surprised that Isabelle found out. She had her finger permanently affixed to the pulse of the social scene in New York City. It was her job to know about these things before they happened.
And she said she was happy for him; she was just a little hurt that Kurt hadn't been the one to give her the scoop.
Kurt spent weeks dodging emails, graciously receiving unwanted belated wedding presents until his cheeks cramped from fake smiles, and recounting the made-up story of how he and Sebastian met and fell in love (a script that they had prepared ahead of time so that no one could take them by surprise). A month later, again, Kurt thought he could put the bulk of the hysteria behind him. He wasn't going to let this affect his life. It was only one stupid year. After the last cappuccino maker was donated to the Goodwill, he decided to continue on undaunted.
It wasn't until he saw an article in the quarterly NYADA newsletter…and then received a short but sweet congratulations note from Blaine - one that, in a total of three sentences, managed to shut the door on an entire history of dreams and plans that Kurt had always thought might still be a possibility…that the reality of what he had entered into finally sunk in.
That was Kurt's breaking point. He wanted to crawl in a hole and die.
But regardless, he never told Sebastian about the note from Blaine.
Sebastian blew the attention off. The Smythe family was used to being in the public eye, so none of that bothered him. As far as Sebastian was concerned, it was a means to an end – and a fortunate one, too. Sebastian's grandparents' executors had eyes everywhere. So Sebastian took Kurt everywhere – to galas and openings and dinners galore. It was hard for Kurt not to feel overwhelmed by all of this, by inclusion into this elite world that he had only dreamed of, and he would be lying if it didn't improve his position at school and at Vogue. Over time, he put his broken heart aside and, with the actual exception of being married to Sebastian Smythe, he started to enjoy being married to Sebastian Smythe.
Whether Sebastian was simply playing a convincing part or what, he turned out to be more of a hopeless romantic than Kurt took him for. He planned romantic dinners, unexpected trips, bought Kurt unnecessarily expensive presents. Maybe Sebastian was performing for whatever prying eyes happened to be around. Maybe he was making up for years of not having anyone to dote on. Maybe he didn't want Kurt to completely hate the time they were forced to spend together. Whatever it was he was doing, however he truly felt, Kurt never got to know. He thought he did. He felt he was so close.
And Kurt forgot about everything. He forgot about his life before this ruse, he forgot there would be a time after. He forgot that time was flying by until that time was nearly up. Until one morning, Sebastian met him downstairs for breakfast, whistling and dancing and looking exceptionally ecstatic, and asked Kurt, "Do you know what day today is?"
Kurt had smiled at his giddiness and excitement, wondering what today would hold, and said, "No. What?"
Sebastian slapped down a manila folder in front of him. Kurt didn't touch it, but the drop made it vomit out its contents, and Kurt went cold. Inside was a copy of their wedding license, their contract, all the other paperwork that wrapped them up in this phony marriage.
"Thirty days from now," Sebastian cheered, "we'll both be free men."
And a piece of Kurt's soul left his body.
Kurt had looked forward to those days being up so much when this all began. But now…
It had started on Friday the 13th, and as luck would have it, it ended on a Friday the 13th.
As the last of his boxes are packed up and Kurt gives Sebastian one final hug goodbye, Kurt tries to remember that Friday the 13th has always been his lucky day.
But not this time.
Because even before Kurt gets into his rental car and drives away, leaving Sebastian's house and the last whirlwind year behind, he realizes the thing that will haunt him till the day he dies.
He loved being Sebastian Smythe's husband.