Ever since he can remember, Kurt has secretly dreamed of having the power to put the world on mute.
It's a fantasy that he's nursed through all the years of yelling and taunts he's had to endure in school. He thinks of it during Rachel's fourth hour of chatter about her new Off-(Off, he adds in his head)-Broadway role. He thinks of it on the days that the vindictive honks of the New York streets are truly aggravating his morning migraine. And he thinks of it when Blaine turns on his juicer at 1:00 in the goddamn morning because he's just come home from his latest gig and he's thirsty.
He's had this fantasy for as long as he can remember, probably since he was a child.
And now, it's finally come true.
No matter how hard he tries, he can't hear a thing. He knows it's not actually quiet around him. He can see, as he slowly (so painfully slowly, as if there's molasses on his shoes) enters the room, that there's people talking, laughing, gesturing, everywhere around. He sees someone's phone is ringing, he watches someone bump into a table, and by the fact that some people are swaying, he would even guess that there's music.
But he can't hear any of it. Funny, how the things you want come to you at the worst possible times.
Kurt stands there silently (so silently), frozen at the entrance, trench-coat halfway off his shoulders, and simply watches – like a strange version of charades, except he has no clue what he's supposed to be guessing.
He wonders if this is what having a stroke feels like. He wonders, if he were to start talking, whether he would hear himself speak. He wonders what Sebastian sees as their eyes meet suddenly across the room; it must be something different than usual, because he lowers his champagne glass slightly and tilts his head, a smirk only half-hovering over his lips.
Suddenly, Kurt's vision is obscured by a petite brunette making her way across to him from the other side, very briskly and very matter-of-factly. By the way Rachel's mouth is moving, he can tell she's already started talking at him rapidly, but for the life of him he can't hear a thing. Behind her, Santana is stalking towards him as well, eyes ablaze, mouth set in a grim line of "You did not just fucking do what I think you did."
He chances a glance back at Sebastian and sees that he's started making his way over as well – a little more casually, but still, with a definite purpose to his step. And fuck, on a scale of one to Macaulay Culkin, he must look pretty fucking bad if Sebastian of all people can tell that something's wrong. Why on Gaga's green earth did he think coming here was a good idea?
Rachel's in front of him now and looking at him expectantly. He doesn't lipread, but even he can guess the over-enunciated, "Well?"
Now Santana's reached him, too, and he can't help but think that she's managed to make a string of matronly pearls look rather sexy with a crimson satin V-neck. He'll have to compliment her on that later.
Finally, Sebastian's there as well, head still tilted, eyes squinting slightly as he studies him.
"And if I haven't gotten all three of my wishes at once," Kurt wants to say – really wants to say, except for some reason, he can't quite get his mouth to work.
And suddenly, from the corner of his eye, he sees black curly hair and a navy suit, and just like that, the sound is back on.
"- searching everywhere for you. I had to tell Blaine you were stuck in traffic," Rachel is hissing. She stops to catch her breath and seems to take the moment to survey him. "Kurt, what's wrong? Are you alright?"
"Hey, Velma, talk to us," Santana snaps, with her patented mixture of concern and irritation. "What's happened?"
Kurt glances over at Sebastian, who's watching him quietly, one eyebrow quirked, while still sipping champagne. It's this very Sebastian-like behavior that finally seems to snap Kurt out of his stupor.
"Nothing," he says, and he marvels at how smooth and calm his voice sounds. He finishes sliding off his trench coat and folds it neatly over his arm. Everywhere around, the muffled din of conversation and music comes and goes in gentle waves.
Normal. Everything is normal.
"I'm fine, Rachel. Just a last-minute fashion disaster at ELLE, I needed to come in."
Rachel looks horrified at this new information, even more so than when she'd thought that some emergency had delayed him. "Couldn't – couldn't someone else have come in? Tonight of all nights, Kurt – I mean…" She trails off unhappily in a tone she has perfected over the years. Kurt privately calls it her I'mnotangryjustdisappointed voice.
"I'm sorry, but you're telling us we were covering your ass with your fiancé because someone lost the button on their Chanel blazer?"
"Now that's hardly fair, Lopez," Sebastian finally chimes in, thumb tracing the rim of his glass. "It could've been two buttons. Or even a zipper."
Kurt rolls his eyes – and God, it feels good to do something that's so normal – and gives his best one-eyebrow glare. "As hard as you all may find it to believe, working in fashion involves more than just sewing on buttons. If you must know, they sent off the wrong centerspread to copy. I had to be there, it was all hands-on-deck." There, that lie sounds believable enough.
"I still can't believe you thought that was more important," Rachel says, in a tone close to whining.
Santana shakes her head, tapping one black stiletto-ed heel against the floor with her arms crossed. "Just don't expect us to cover for you again, Cinderella. You run from the wedding, you're on your own." She shoots a glare over at Sebastian, who has made no move to leave their little circle. "Something you need, Lothario?"
He looks at her with a signature smirk – Kurt genuinely wonders if he's taken out a copyright on it – and replies, "I was just realizing that the devil does, in fact, wear Prada."
"It's Vince Camuto, you idiot," Santana snaps back, and when Sebastian laughs, Kurt snorts with him, because she did (kind of) just admit that she's Satan.
"Alright, well, you're here now. That's what's important, and it means that we can finally start," Rachel breaks in primly. God bless Rachel's heart, the girl could compartmentalize.
"Good," Sebastian says, smoothly pulling a folded piece of paper from his front pocket, "because I have a hell of an embarrassing speech cooked up for the two of you."
And then, something about the way Sebastian shifts slightly to the right, and Santana takes a step slightly to the left, suddenly puts Blaine – gorgeous, sweet Blaine – right in Kurt's line of sight. Their eyes meet across the room, and he can't help but think that it's romantic, really – almost exactly like how they show it in the movies.
Blaine begins walking over, and if that isn't slow-motion, then Kurt has never seen the Matrix (he has, on Sam's request – three times, to be exact, and each time, Sam has refused to call Blaine anything other than Mr. Anderson for at least a week after).
With every step that he takes, Kurt feels his heart beginning to beat faster and faster. He can do this. He can do this. He can –
"Nope, I can't do this."
He breaks Rachel off mid-monologue on the planned schedule for the evening. He slides the trench coat back on, watching Blaine's welcoming smile falter into confusion, and turns on his heel, starting a brisk walk toward the door. There's a small eruption of noise behind him.
"Kurt, what do you – "
"Hummel, you better – "
"Kurt?"
The last one is Blaine's voice. He knows if he turns to look, he'll be dragged back to the depths of hell, and he'll be damned if he's going to make the same mistake as Orpheus, that lyre-strumming fool.
The air outside is cold and sharp and sour but somehow comforting. If the New York weather can't be bothered to give a fuck about his problems, why should he? Maybe he should go to that bar winking at him from across the street. Or maybe he should head to the Thai place a block from their apartment, he's been craving their sticky rice for –
"Hey! Hey, Hummel, I'm talking to you." The clicking steps are surprisingly fast for someone he knows is tottering in six-inch heels, but that surprise is nothing compared to the sharp slap he receives against his cheek a moment later.
"What the hell, Santana?" he hisses, because really, did they land in an episode of Real Housewives of Brooklyn when he wasn't looking?
"Snap out of it, Hummel," Santana bites back sharply. "Don't do this. Whatever celestial sign you think you've seen, someone's shirt color, your horoscope, whatever – it's all in your head! Do you understand? You do not have the privilege to have a Berry meltdown right now."
Rachel has finally caught up to them, breathless, the hem of her dress clutched in her hand. "Kurt, honey, I know it's stressful," she says in a sympathetic voice, all traces of her previous anger gone. "I know it is. I almost considered calling it off, too, you know. Right on the day of the wedding. But I didn't. And honey, if even I somehow managed not to screw it up, then you know that you definitely can't, right?"
"Don't make a mistake you'll regret for the rest of your life on some kind of, some kind of, fucking impulse!" Santana gestures to the air around her in anger as she talks.
"You know, I'm glad you were the one who slapped him, because if I had, that would not have come off the right way."
Santana whirls on Sebastian, who is leaning against the stone wall behind them. "I'm sorry, Gossip Girl, but did I say you could join us? This is inner circle only."
"Well actually, as Blaine's best man, I'm here as his representative in the 'inner circle,' as you call it," Sebastian uses air quotes, all while managing to delicately hold his champagne glass, "and since it looks like Groom One here might be making a runner, I kind of have to keep abreast of the situation on his behalf."
"Don't be ridiculous, Sebastian," Rachel says. "No one's making a runner. Right, Kurt?" Rachel turns to look at him pleadingly.
He shakes his head sadly at her, but sees that she interprets it the wrong way from the relief that lights up her face.
"I'm sorry, Rachel," he whispers. "I can't go through with it."
"To hell you can't, you – you – pendejo!" Santana retorts. "I am dragging you back in there by your blonde-tip highlights if I have to – "
"Please, Kurt, if you just talk to us – "
"Look, Hummel, have some champagne, and – "
Suddenly everyone's crowding him, blocking his way out, penning him in, and he really can't breathe anymore.
"Look, Porcelain, you made me promise if you had a freak-out, that I would – "
"Kurt, you know we just want you to be – "
"Why am I not surprised that is turning into a shit show before we even – "
"He fucked someone else!"
Kurt doesn't mean to shout it, he really doesn't. He means to say it firmly and calmly, with a defiant tilt of his chin, but instead it comes out as a desperate yell. He's fairly certain the whole street hears him, but all he can focus on are the three shocked, drawn faces staring back at him right now. Santana's mouth is hanging open slightly, Sebastian is looking at him as if he pulled a parrot from beneath his coat, and Rachel looks close to tears.
Surprisingly, she's also the first one to break the silence. "What – what do you mean?"
The strength goes out of Kurt in an almost audible whoosh, and he can no longer muster the anger of a second ago. "I mean he cheated on me, Rachel."
"But – but – "
"How do you know?" Santana asks, quietly but with tight lips.
"I just do," Kurt mutters.
"Well, maybe you're wrong," Rachel starts babbling. "Maybe it's a mistake, like the time I thought that Macy's sent me the wrong pair of pumps, except it turned out I'd ordered the wrong ones, but then I spent so long arguing with them on the phone that they sent them to me anyway and then I ended up with two pairs – "
"Shut up, Berry." Sebastian's voice is clipped and short, similar to how Santana's had sounded, and he repeats her question. "How do you know?"
Kurt doesn't want to look at any of them, but he ends up holding Sebastian's eyes. They're a dark green, and right now they're intense and searching and afire. He's reminded of the gleam of green beer bottles, the reflected light that he used to follow with fascination as a child when his father would sit down to watch a game.
"A video," he answers quietly.
"What?" Santana asks.
"Someone, I – I don't know who, but someone, anonymously, thought that they should send me a video, the day of my rehearsal dinner."
"A – a video of what?" Rachel asks tentatively.
Kurt exhales sharply through his nose. "What do you think, Rachel?"
"Well, how can you be sure – "
"Fine, you want to see it yourself, go ahead," he snaps, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He's losing his temper now, because it's becoming clear that they don't believe him, that they'd all prefer to assume that he's suffering from some hysterical delusion. And God, part of him wishes he is.
He regrets it a second before he does it, but he thrusts the video towards Rachel anyways, and winces as her face turns from foreboding into horror. Santana snatches the phone from her hand and brings it up almost to her nose, watching it a good twenty seconds before bringing it down with an expression of disgust.
"How do you know it's not from before you guys got together again?" Sebastian says, once again leaning against the wall, still cradling his glass.
Rachel face briefly melds into hope. "That's true, the video isn't dated, and – "
"There's a tattoo. He didn't get it until after we got back together," Kurt says robotically.
"It doesn't make sense," Rachel says. "Why would someone send it the day of the dinner?"
"And why won't they put their name to it?"
He doesn't understand why all of these questions matter. He doesn't understand why he has to explain it at all, why a perfectly clear situation to him is proving to be so confusing for all of them.
His fiancé cheated on him. It happens. It's hardly even the most shocking news of the day, if he thinks about it – someone at work today told him they'd heard that flannel is coming back into style (ghastly, with an underline).
"Well then, how – I don't understand how you're so calm about this?" Rachel says slowly, as if chewing through the words as she says them.
Kurt is about to answer her, something along the lines of "Probably because of my friends, Smirnoff and Captain Morgan," when Sebastian's voice breaks in instead.
"Because that's the way the world ends."
Something about how calmly and simply he says it sends a chill down Kurt's spine, and he turns a literal one-eighty in order to look at Sebastian, who is staring down at his shoes, almost thoughtfully. When he finally looks up to meet Kurt's eyes, the dark green is inscrutable, just like the tone of his voice.
"Hey, kiddo, something wrong with this place we should know about? Or is being late to your own rehearsal dinner one of those fashionable New York things that I don't get?"
Kurt's heart drops out from under him. The door slams shut behind his father as he joins them outside, dressed in a neat, black suit, and with a beer bottle in his hand (his only request for the festivities – "I'm not a picky man, but I need my Sam Adams"). His tone is light, but his eyes are searching, like they often seem to be when he's talking to Kurt – probably a side effect of how little Kurt had confided in him during high school.
Kurt's heart sinks, because he certainly can't make a run for it anymore, and he definitely can't call it off - at least not tonight, in front of his proud, misty-eyed father who's flown out to New York just for him – just for this week.
"He was negotiating the terms of his contract. Officially, it all disappears at midnight, but he was trying to push it out to 1:00." Sebastian's contemplative tone is gone, replaced with his usual filter of snark and smirk.
Burt turns a long, bracing stare onto him, and then looks back at Kurt. "I don't know, kiddo. It's your rehearsal dinner. I think you can push for at least 2:00."
Sebastian chuckles and raises his champagne glass to Burt's beer.
Kurt has always been under the opinion that life has certain unsolvable enigmas – the existence of sweatpants outside of the home, Patti LuPone's possession of only two Tony awards, and, most recently, the relationship between Sebastian and his father.
He isn't able to explain it. The first time they met, at his and Blaine's apartment-warming party, he expected his father to immediately give Sebastian the "unmovable rock" routine. It certainly hadn't helped that Sebastian's first words to his father were, "So… adopted?"
But instead of stone-cold silence (best case scenario, he had thought), he found them in the kitchen a half hour later, bonding over their hatred of Lite beer and their mutual amusement with Kurt's experimental fashion.
They've gotten along ever since, and he's tried not to be hurt by how much more comfortable Burt has always seemed with Sebastian than with Blaine.
"Talking to him's a lot like talking to you," is the only explanation Burt has ever offered on the matter.
"Look, Burt, Kurt and we – we and Kurt – all of us were just trying to – " Rachel stutters.
"We were just about to go in, Dad," Kurt breaks in, and just like that, the mask is on and he wonders why something so familiar to him provides him so little comfort. He supposes that now, the same could be said for his fiancé.
Rachel freezes much like a rabbit sensing danger. He knows Santana and Sebastian are sending him strange looks, but he ignores the stares like he's ignored them all through high school.
Linking arms with his dad, he gives his best attempt at a smile – and really, in that moment, Meryl has nothing on him. "Will you walk me in? It'll be good practice." Just like that. Pretending like the wedding is actually happening tomorrow. Just for tonight.
Because this is they way the worlds ends - not with a bang, but a whimper.