"So, it hasn't happened to you yet?" Kurt asks, taking a sip from his non-fat mocha. He shivers when a nighttime breeze slips up his sleeve and manages to chill him despite the heat of the coffee warding off the cold.
"Fuck no, obviously," Sebastian laughs, switching places with Kurt subconsciously to block his thin-skinned friend against the wind, "and thank God. I mean, first of all, I don't want a soulmate, I don't need a soulmate, I hope I fucking never find my soulmate."
Kurt flinches, unexpectedly wounded by Sebastian's words.
"You don't?" he says, hiding his hurt in another sip of his coffee.
"Nope," Sebastian says with his trademark cynicism. "Why would I need a soulmate when I have you?" Sebastian winks and Kurt smiles into his cup. He wants to believe that's true, but it's inevitable. Eventually Kurt is going to stumble across his soulmate and Sebastian would find his. It would strike like lightning, from out of nowhere, and their friendship – this strange weed that took root and bloomed into a wild and fabulous flower – would be over. A soulmate overwhelms you, Kurt heard - your love for them all-encompassing. Kurt has a feeling that Sebastian will find his soulmate first, and after that, he won't even remember Kurt exists.
Kurt swallows hard at the thought of Sebastian in the arms of some man – some other man who isn't him.
"And besides," Sebastian continues, filling the silence, "that whole bodyswapping thing is just fucking creepy."
Kurt sputters, then laughs, and Sebastian reacts with a hearty laugh of his own. He's heard Sebastian moan over and over about this one particular aspect of the soulmate finding process. No one really understands it, as is the way with all highly contested scientific truths. Not a single person chose their own soulmate. A combination of genetics, personality factors, brain chemistry, and plain blind luck did it for you. Your soulmate could be a stranger you meet at a coffee shop tomorrow or someone you've known your entire life. One day, for whatever reason, the two of you switch bodies and then you know that person is the one for you. In that time when you are not yourself, you imprint in their bodies, on their DNA, and the two of you become one.
He accepts it, but he has to agree. It's creepy. But whether Sebastian likes it or not, it's a fact of nature, and you can't fight nature.
"The switch only lasts for about a week," Kurt reassures him.
"Yeah, well, do you think I want to be out of my body for a week?" Sebastian asks with a groan. "I mean, I can see why some other poor sucker would want to be all up in this…" Sebastian gestures down the length of his body with a sweep of his hands, "but personally, I don't want to be stuck up in someone else's skin. I mean, I won't even use another man's shower. Why am I going to want to live in their body?"
"I don't know," Kurt laughs, shaking his head. He looks down at his feet, watching the toes of his shoes skim across the dirty concrete. "I guess the universe thought it was a romantic notion."
"Yeah, well, I have it on pretty good authority that the universe doesn't necessarily give a shit about us puny humans," Sebastian retorts in a tight voice. Kurt's head snaps up to meet Sebastian's eyes, but he's glowering straight ahead, his jaw locked. Sebastian had his own ideas about soulmates and everlasting love…and which one of them would find theirs first.
Already he can picture himself taking this walk for their nightly coffee alone.
"And whose authority is that?" Kurt asks.
Sebastian chews thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek while he considers how he's going to answer Kurt's question. He sees a subtle movement from the corner of his eye and tries to ignore it, but it's like the erratic swooping of a fly in and out of his blind spot. He has to be rid of it.
He turns and catches Kurt's eye as Kurt pulls his tongue back in his mouth, rushing to recompose the face he was making while Sebastian sulked. A smile spreads wide on Sebastian's face as all the snarky comments and bitter remarks are sucked away.
"Me, okay?" Sebastian says, reaching out an arm to shove Kurt away, but sinking his fingers into the arm of Kurt's coat instead and tugging him close. "I'm the authority."
"Good to know," Kurt says, tossing his empty coffee cup away in a wire trash can at the corner of the sidewalk they're on.
"Why?" Sebastian presses the button for the light, but then crosses against it anyway.
"Because now I know to ignore all that bullshit you just said."
Sebastian chuckles, absorbed in Kurt's warmth, his smell, the way he fits so comfortably beneath his arm. He can't imagine anything in the world that will be better than this. He steals a moment to pretend that Kurt is his soulmate, that the two of them are meant to be together.
He lets his guard down.
The click of a slide brings him back.
"Give me your wallet," a rough voice hisses from behind them. "Now!"
Kurt and Sebastian stop walking at the same time.
Sebastian turns slowly, pushing Kurt reflexively behind his body as he does. Sebastian sees the gun – not so much the man holding it.
"It's alright," Sebastian says, slowly reaching into his back pocket for his wallet. "I'll give you my wallet. You don't need to shoot anyone."
Sebastian slips his hand into his pocket and finds nothing. He pats down the pockets of his jeans and freezes.
He didn't bring his wallet.
It was Kurt's turn to treat.
Kurt even made a big joke of making Sebastian leave his wallet at home. It was sitting on his kitchen table where he had dropped it hastily before they left Kurt's apartment.
"Uh…Kurt," Sebastian whispers, swallowing hard, "I don't have my wallet."
"Shit," Kurt whimpers, frantically searching his own pockets for his wallet.
"Wait," the man with the gun says, craning his neck to peer around Sebastian's body at the sound of rustling, "what's going on? What's your girlfriend doing back there?"
Sebastian meets the man's eyes for the first time – red veins spider webbing over the yellow-tinged whites surround thin brown irises and pupils blown abnormally wide, even for nighttime. His gun hand shakes, sometimes vibrating his whole arm, and he shifts feet – left to right – as if preparing to run any second. His shoulders twitch, and his free hand reaches up to scratch at his neck, at dirty skin already clawed raw.
Sebastian feels a sudden sense of urgency grip at him and squeeze hard.
This man is tripping hardcore.
Sebastian needs to get Kurt away from him…now.
"Uh, Kurt, honey," Sebastian whispers again, trying to stay calm. "Could you hurry up, please?"
"I'm trying," Kurt says through trembling lips, his palms sweating, trying to grab hold of the wallet trapped in the pocket of his skinny jeans with his fingertips.
"I said, what's going on over there?" the man yells, eyes darting back and forth immediately down the dark sidewalk, looking for oncoming foot traffic.
"Nothing," Sebastian says, an edge to his forced calm, "I don't have my wallet."
"I…I do," Kurt stutters, reaching around Sebastian's body and tossing his wallet to the man with the gun. It lands at the gunman's feet, but he doesn't look at it. His eyes go wide instead at the sight of Kurt standing beside but slightly behind Sebastian, gripping tight to Sebastian's arm. The man's chapped lips twist, exposing greying teeth and bleeding gums.
"Are you…are you guys homos?" he growls, his gun hand shaking more, or maybe he's waving it, the barrel bouncing back and forth between them.
Kurt doesn't know what to say. He has always believed in standing up to bullies, in not denying himself, so he's more than mortified when his gut reaction is to blurt out no! But obviously this situation is different. This man has a gun. He doesn't seem completely stable, and he doesn't look like he approves of Kurt and Sebastian.
Ironic that the drugged-out mugger is going to discriminate against them for their lifestyle choices.
Look at his life right now.
But he has a gun, so at this moment, he makes the rules.
"You have his wallet," Sebastian says slowly, trying to back Kurt away. A single movement of his foot brings the attention of the mugger's gun back to Sebastian's face and holds steady. Sebastian freezes. "Just pick it up and go."
It sounds reasonable to Kurt. It's an excellent, thought out plan. Kurt holds his breath and bites hard on his tongue, cowering beneath the cold gaze bearing down on him, and prays the mugger takes Sebastian's advice – that he takes the wallet and runs.
If he doesn't, he still has the upper hand.
A wallet, or two dead men and a wallet are the same thing, really.
Kurt tries not to look at the gun. Maybe if he doesn't acknowledge its existence, the man will forget he has it.
But Kurt is terrified, and the way his body reacts isn't entirely up to him. It's hard for him to be held hostage by something that can end his life and not look at it. His eyes water with the effort of staying open, but then he blinks, and his eyes flick down to the gun pointed at them. When his eyes travel back up, the man has trained the barrel on him.
"So, you fuck him?" the man says, shifting feet again. "The two of you fuck each other?"
Sebastian sucks in a deep breath.
"Take the wallet…" he says again, hoping to derail the man's train of thought.
"That's sick," the man spits. His shifting feet kick the wallet and Kurt's heart slams to a stop.
He kicked the wallet.
He doesn't carry about the money anymore.
He's got a gun.
"You sick fucks!" The man takes a step forward and Sebastian pushes Kurt back farther behind him. "What…what's wrong with you, man?"
Kurt panics, sure that Sebastian is going to come out with some witty remark, something angry, something that will provoke the man, but not for a single moment does he consider running and leaving Sebastian alone.
"You're right," Sebastian agrees. "We're sick. We're sick, and we should go get help. So you just take that wallet and go, and we'll go somewhere and get some help."
Kurt is stunned by this side of Sebastian – calm under pressure and willing to do or say anything to save his life…but not just his life, their lives.
Sebastian is trying to save Kurt's life, possibly at the expense of his own - keeping Kurt behind his body, blocking him from the gun, knowing that at any moment the man can kill him.
At this point, he probably will kill them.
The man is right on them, stopped a foot from them. Kurt can't bring his eyes to leave his face – pockmarked and filthy, matted hair stuck to his cheeks and sparsely grown scruff around his chin. There's an aura of desperation surrounding him and not a hint of humanity in his broken stare.
Then Sebastian says something that renders Kurt entirely useless.
"Look," he says, not betraying a single thread of his calm, "if you have to shoot someone - fine. Shoot me. Let my friend go."
The gunman's face goes completely blank.
"Sebastian…" Kurt whispers, slipping a hand into his.
"Hey!"
The yell comes from a man who has turned onto their sidewalk and sees Kurt and Sebastian being held at gunpoint. The gunman flinches, his attention momentarily drawn away from his two victims. Sebastian sees his chance, and in a move bred from his need to protect Kurt, he shoves Kurt to the sidewalk while simultaneously grabbing for the gun.
"Oomph! Sebastian!" Kurt screams. His cry joins the sound of feet running toward them, scuffling, cursing, muffled groans of pain, the snap of something that sounds like a large, dry branch, but Kurt realizes is probably a bone.
The gunman screams.
More people call out to them.
The gun goes off.
Kurt hears it ring in his ears. It sounds closer than it originally seemed. He can't see Sebastian, but he imagines he's been shot. He imagines Sebastian dead – the love he would never have for his own, dead. He hyperventilates. All those coffee dates, all those dinners they ate together. How many walks in the park, movies watched, nights spent on one another's couch, and Kurt never outright told Sebastian he loved him? Kurt is such a fool, and that foolishness wants to strangle him. He tries to stand, to see if Sebastian's alright, but he falls onto the concrete and the world goes black.
Sebastian feels the bullet enter his shoulder. He feels the pressure from the impact. He feels the sear on his skin. He feels muscles separate and sting while nerves go completely numb. One shot seems to tear apart arteries and flesh, but the bullet doesn't stop there. He registers it moving further into his chest as he falls away from the gunman and onto the ground. He wonders when it will stop. He wonders if he'll live.
He wonders if he'll get the chance to tell Kurt everything he truly feels.
He's been stupid. He realizes it now. Blind and stupid. Maybe finding his soulmate will happen over time, but that doesn't mean he can't love now, while he has the chance.
He loves Kurt. He loves him. He should have told him a million times. Every day. A million times a day.
Why did he have to get shot to figure that out?
He blinks once and sees two men grab the asshole with the gun and drag him away.
He blinks again and sees a crowd of people surround him, feels someone take his pulse, hears a woman yell to her companion, "Call 9-1-1!"
He blinks again, and suddenly he sees the crowd from a distance. All of these people – where the fuck were they before? A few of them break away from the cluster and run towards him.
"Are you alright?" a young man asks.
"What?" Sebastian asks, shaking his head.
"Are you alright?" another young man repeats, holding out a hand to help him to his feet.
The first man slaps the second.
"Don't make him stand!" he scolds. "He might have a concussion!"
A wave of nausea swirls through him, and the whole world shifts to the left before settling back into place.
What the fuck is going on?
Sebastian slowly rises to his feet, with barely any effort, his wounded arm miraculously healed, though his head is threatening to spin off his shoulders. He looks at the two faces staring at him, and beyond them the crowd – so many people gathered, the gunman pinned by the two men to a car, ambulances and police cars screeching around the corner.
Coming for him? He was shot, but he doesn't have a scratch.
He looks down at his hands and his stomach flips.
Not his hands. Not his shoes. Not his clothes.
"Kurt?" he mumbles. Then the scurry of thoughts and feelings that aren't entirely his own fall and click in his muddled brain and everything becomes clear.
Kurt is the one.
Sebastian's soulmate.
The man he's meant to love and have for the rest of his life.
Trapped in a body that is fighting to stay alive.