A/N: Warning for description of a very unhealthy Dom/sub relationship, including infidelity and emotional manipulation.

Kurt was getting sick and tired of how the crappiest events in his life came on the days with the most unexpectedly beautiful weather.

When his mother passed away, smack dab in the middle of September, it had been on the first day of sunshine they'd had in weeks. The day of her funeral, the weather was even better – clear blue skies, a slight autumnal breeze to push the leaves around, accompanied by a hint of warmth, enough that Kurt didn't need to wear a heavy coat over his black suit when they went to the cemetery.

Kurt's father suffered his first heart attack on a rare temperate day in the midst of the rainy season. Kurt remembered that he had even talked about walking through the park with his friends, to take advantage of the sun on his skin, before Mr. Schue pulled him out of class.

When Dave Karofsky forcefully kissed him, when he was accused of rigging the student body presidential election, when he found out he didn't get into NYADA – all days of unseasonably warm or otherwise extremely pleasant weather.

So it was no surprise, to him, at least, that here he was, walking through the streets of New York, at one in the afternoon on a fine, spring day. With the breeze at his back and the sun in his face, he huddled beneath his jacket, cold to the bone, but only because he was sick of life, sick of being dicked over, sick of being cheated out of everything he loved. Those things had sucked the warmth right out of him.

Otherwise, it was a gorgeous day.

The day that Blaine had collared Kurt, presenting him with the simple sterling silver band that was supposed to represent their life together, a ring with no beginning or end and shimmering like the stars in the evening sky, it had been pouring down rain for weeks. That gave Kurt confidence that the two of them would last forever.

They had made their vow shortly after Blaine had proposed to Kurt on the staircase at Dalton Academy, in front of all their friends and most of their family. In some ways, the collar that Blaine had put around Kurt's neck in private meant more to him than the ring he'd put on his finger in public. It was a symbol of their special connection – a relationship that existed solely for them. It didn't need to be advertised, or defined and scrutinized by others. It meant service and commitment, dedication and love, protection and sacrifice.

Sure Kurt's engagement ring was a symbol of how they planned to join their lives together, but that collar made them one.

Blaine fell into the role of Dom as if he was born to it, and Kurt served his Dom obediently. He was a picture perfect sub, abiding by the rules they set together, down to the letter. He knelt at Blaine's feet when they were at home together. He made all of Blaine's meals to his exact specifications. Kurt decided on his own, as a show of his devotion, to forgo his signature style and wear only the clothes Blaine bought for him, shipping the rest of his things back to Lima since he was positive he wouldn't need them anymore (but he was still a little too attached to them to part with them completely). Kurt never resented Blaine for the changes he himself chose to make to prove his loyalty, didn't protest the assumption of his identity. Kurt was happy to do those things for Blaine because Blaine loved him.

That's what Kurt believed, and he did so with all his heart.

Little did Kurt know that even though Blaine's dominance meant everything to him, Kurt's submission didn't mean that much to Blaine. Everything Kurt was, everything he had to give, was apparently replaceable, quicker and easier than he imagined.

For a while, Blaine had been questioning the depths of Kurt's faithfulness. When Kurt got his promotion at Vogue and was asked to work longer hours, Blaine felt it flew in the face of Kurt's service toward him. When Kurt earned a place in the Winter Showcase at school and Blaine didn't, it meant that Kurt aspired to be superior to his Dom. When other people started noticing Kurt, even though Kurt didn't look their way, Blaine felt Kurt was intentionally trying to make him jealous. When Kurt's dad became ill, and Kurt became distant, distraught, heartbroken, when he used their safeword more than normal because he didn't have the energy or the mindset to accept punishment, when he needed a break from certain aspects of their Dom/sub dynamic to get things straight in his head, Blaine finally had enough.

Blaine had already made up his mind without discussion that Kurt wasn't the sub he originally thought he was.

Kurt didn't know Blaine's motivations. He didn't think Blaine could be so cruel. But Blaine didn't even have the compassion to tell Kurt any of this before Kurt walked into the loft and found Blaine with his new sub, a young man they both knew from school, completely naked and on his knees, sucking Blaine off.

Kurt didn't know anything about their relationship, and he didn't stick around to ask. He could only assume that Blaine had known this man for a while since he was wearing Kurt's sterling silver collar.

When Kurt left, he took nothing with him, because after years of giving himself over to Blaine's complete control, there wasn't a single thing in the loft that belonged to him.

Kurt walked the city alone for hours. He didn't really have anywhere to go. He always kept charge of his own finances (something else he and Blaine disagreed on, but giving up control of his money was a hard limit for Kurt, so eventually Blaine let it drop), so he could stay at a hotel for a little while. That wasn't his problem.

Kurt didn't know how to be alone anymore. He didn't know how to be independent in certain things. When he and Blaine started this relationship, everything was new. This was a first for both of them, giving in to desires that they had kept locked away, even from each other, for so long. In exposing himself as a submissive to Blaine and accepting Blaine as his Dom, he gave Blaine all of his firsts. To date, Blaine had been the only witness to his vulnerabilities, the only one to command him…the only one Kurt ever trusted enough to hand himself over to completely.

They kept their world so secure, so private, that there was really only a handful of other people that Kurt knew who actively participated in their community, and only one that he knew personally.

And Kurt had mixed feelings about ending up on his doorstep.

They met up again after Blaine graduated and moved to New York to be with Kurt. Sebastian graduated then, too, but they assumed he had gone off to Paris, or London, maybe even Amsterdam. But their first time at a dedicated BDSM club in the city, they ran into him. He didn't have a sub of his own. He was just playing the room, as it were. Kurt was scared about letting him in on their secret, but Blaine insisted. Kurt didn't understand why, but it seemed important to Blaine, so Kurt relented.

Away from Dalton, away from Ohio, away from reputation and expectation, Sebastian was a different man. Or the Dom in him exposed made him a different man. Kurt really couldn't tell. But seeing him there, talking to him, then meeting up again from time to time showed Kurt a whole new shade of Sebastian Smythe – as if he was being introduced to a brand new man altogether. It was a mystery that Kurt thought someday he might like an answer to.

Today might be the start of that day, because somehow, after only being there (for high protocol dinners) about three times, Sebastian's penthouse was exactly where Kurt found himself, at nine o'clock at night, exhausted, hungry, and emotionally drained.

Stepping through the glass double doors of Sebastian's building on the Upper East Side, he didn't care too much about trust, he could give a shit about love. He just wanted to feel something other than betrayed and empty, and if it came at the hand of humiliation or indifference, so be it.

The doorman had to call up to get permission for Kurt to be there, and Kurt prayed Sebastian was alone. Part of him also prayed that Sebastian would turn him down. But even before the name Hummel passed the doorman's lips, Sebastian said, "Send him up, send him up."

And that was that.

Kurt rode the elevator up fourteen floors to get to him, and with each floor he passed, he considered stopping the elevator and turning back. He figured he could take a moment to compose himself before he knocked on Sebastian's door, and then he could decide exactly what he wanted to do.

But he didn't get that chance.

Sebastian's door was open with Sebastian standing in the hall when the elevator doors slid open and Kurt stepped out. Kurt hadn't seen himself for the last however many hours he'd been trolling the city. He didn't peek at his reflection in the windows he passed, didn't look at his face in the mirror the times he stopped to use the restroom. But from the slight reaction Sebastian gave when he saw him, he must have looked pretty bad.

Kurt bowed his head when he approached Sebastian, hoping to give a silent indication of what he wanted. He didn't think he could bear to say it out loud. A tense moment of silence passed between them, and Kurt braved a look up at Sebastian through wet lashes. Sebastian, who hadn't moved and barely breathed, looked down at the tears on Kurt's face.

He didn't need Kurt to say a word to know why he was there.

Sebastian had been skeptical about this relationship between Kurt and Blaine the second the allure of Blaine wore off for him – when he started to see Blaine for who he truly was: immature, possessive, irrational, manipulative. Blaine played the soul mate card for all it was worth when it came to Kurt, but even Sebastian could see that what started out sweet and innocent had turned volatile within a year. Nothing about Kurt and Blaine's relationship was healthy, and adding domination into the mix was just asking for trouble.

As an outside observer, Sebastian noticed a lot of rifts forming between them. Blaine started to push Kurt to do things he didn't seem comfortable with. Blaine seemed to come down too hard on Kurt for no reason. Sebastian knew they had a TPE arrangement with regards to things like clothes. Sebastian had always joked about Kurt's taste in fashion, but at least Kurt knew how to dress in a way that complimented his body. Blaine seemed to go out of his way to pick things that made Kurt look unattractive, even dowdy.

But the kicker was when Blaine started sending feelers out around the club, looking for someone to "share" Kurt with. Blaine had even discussed it with Sebastian, as a means of "expanding his boundaries", maybe testing his dominating chops by taking on more than one sub at a time, something that Sebastian just knew in his gut that Blaine hadn't broached with Kurt. Sebastian didn't know much about Kurt lately, but he was pretty certain that the young man he used to butt heads with in high school wouldn't have willingly allowed himself to be "shared" with anyone, especially without his consent.

Unless he was wrong, which was one of the reasons why he never asked Kurt for himself.

When Sebastian first ran into them at the club, he had given their relationship approximately a year before things started to fall apart.

Normally he didn't hate being right this much.

"Motherfuckin' Blaine," Sebastian said, shaking his head. He looked at Kurt again, so much smaller than Sebastian remembered him. Every time Sebastian saw them, Kurt started to appear so much less himself, so much more an add-on, an item, a possession. Sebastian sighed. He didn't really want to know the details. He only needed to know one thing.

"Why me?"

Kurt didn't think Sebastian would ask. He thought Sebastian might jump at the chance to dominate him, dish out some long dormant vengeance, so he hadn't come up with an answer. The one that he had already in mind was too raw, too honest to give, but it was the only thing he could think of. His jaw chattered as he struggled to explain himself.

"I want someone to hurt me," Kurt admitted. "You've done it before. I need you to do it again."

Sebastian nodded. That's what he figured. In high school, Sebastian made a career out of hurting Kurt, so yeah, that he could manage. But this was different. They weren't in high school anymore, and the kind of pain Kurt was asking for was harder to dole out. But for some reason, Sebastian hated seeing Kurt like this, and as hard as he wanted to shut the door in his face, he couldn't turn him away, either.

Sebastian opened the door wide and motioned inside. "Foot of my bed, naked and kneeling. Get started. I'll be in in a minute to teach you how."

Sebastian raised a brow at Kurt. One look was all he needed. Shivering and silent, Kurt hurried inside.