The lyrics swim in the air, beats collapse with Kurt's body as he watches him flit gracefully and move in time with the music.
All my friends tell me, I should move on. I'm laying in the ocean, singing your song. Ahh ah oh oh ohh ah ah.
That's how you sang it...
And there's no remedy for memory, your face is like a melody. It won't leave my head..
Your soul is haunting me and telling me, that everything is fine, but I wish I was dead...
And it suddenly hits him that these lyrics are probably far more true for Kurt than he would like. Kurt's body is moving desperately with the need to perform. He is perfect, not human in this moment, the light hitting his skin and his body weightless, floating. He is delicate. He is cracking.
He is broken.
He makes his way over as Kurt's hand runs through his limp hair and tears fall as Kurt tries to sing along to the song while he dances. His voice is broken. He tries to say the words, exerts the force, but no sound comes out.
Eventually, he just drops on his knees and cries for a long time. The glass is shuddering, shaking, breaking..
And then it's all over the floor.
Sebastian picks up the pieces but cuts his hand doing so. When he leans down to help him, his hand is slapped away and he is met with a hiss.
Sebastian doesn't mind; He wouldn't like to talk to himself, either.
"Come to rub it in, Sebastian?" Kurt says with his mouth in a melancholy grin, his eyes red and puffy.
"Come to say, "Oh, Kurt, looks like Blaine won't be meeting you for coffee next week. He deserves better anyway. Maybe he'll meet someone better in heaven?"
The words don't sting. They are weighed down with too much grief and dispair and self-loathing for them to hit with enough force to cause a contusion, a burn.
Despite Kurt's protests, he wraps his long arms around Kurt. Kurt struggles. He hits Sebastian's back so he will let go, go away. He yells..and then he stops. And then there's just tears running down his face, a ghost of the flawless canvas it once was.
He sobs into Sebastian's blazer. His tears soak through the thick fabric and Sebastian's black dress shirt. Sebastian doesn't mind. His father is rich and his mother sends him funds from France every month. He could buy an entire new wardrobe if he wanted. A house for his own, but he doesn't.
He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want Kurt to try and run away again. But he wants to say something. It's important. He starts out with a whisper and builds it up to a soft voice.
"I wanted to see if you were okay. We don't need to fight anymore. There's no reason to."
Kurt doesn't say anything, but his silence is like a nod, like a sound of affirmation. Kurt definitely heard him.
Kurt sobs louder and puts his head in the crook of Sebastian's neck. He shakes so hard and sobs so loud that Sebastian is worried for him, and it scares him that somebody can be this upset. He feels Kurt's heart beat against his chest, his chest heave, sees the pain, the dispair, the regret in Kurt's eyes. His eyes are a dizzy blue-green right now. Everything is blurry and the edges are melting. Sebastian is the only thing that seems solid. Sebastian just holds him tight and close and tries not to scare him away.
But if Sebastian lets him sit in his pool of sorrow for too long, he'll become saturated.
"Come on," he says in a tone so much gentler than is usual one. So much softer and sensitive than he has ever spoken before. "Let's get something to drink. How about some tea?"
His first instinct was coffee, but coffee is the basis of the whole relationship that Kurt and Blaine shared. Medium drip and non-fat mochas. The Lima Bean. Blaine knew Kurt's order. Venting to each other over steaming cups. Having coffee dates and Blaine knowing that a hug and a latte was all Kurt needed when he was sad.
Yes, tea was a much better idea. Sebastian boils the water in the pot, and gets out the tea bags. He decides on apple tea. It smells like autumn and tastes that way, too. Kurt is laying on the couch, wanting physically and mentally to surrender to sleep but being unable to because his thoughts are wide awake.
Sebastian is surprised Kurt let him bring him here. He had simply gathered Kurt's crumpled from and cradled him in his arms, carrying him bridal style. It was a better choice than throwing him over his shoulder in that way that people always did on TV, like they were carry-ons. He found it disrepectful.
Sebastian's house is a very large mansion, the colour of newly fallen snow. His father is rarely home because his job keeps him busy and even though he would sue anyone who dared say a foul word to his son, he still wasn't too fond of him himself. The house is lit by candle light mostly. The lights that are on are dimmed. He hears the haunting whistle of the wind outside and they feel secluded, the both of them, in the large white house in the lonely, expensive neighborhood where the wind can scream and no on will run outside to check on it. Where when you can cut the tension with a knife, it is a good thing, because then it can be served on a plate to all the precious party-goers. A gust of spine-chilling wind crawls through the cracked open window that Sebastian forgot to close. He shivers. He shuts the window.
Sebastian makes cocoa, too. It's chilly outside, the point of autumn that is so close to winter you can taste it on the air, in the bitter wind. He hands Kurt a mug of tea with a warning to be careful and not spill it, because it's scalding and he should just let it cool. When he walks out the room, Kurt doesn't listen, and he watches Kurt from the corner of his eye as he sips the scalding tea, as if trying to burn away all the regret and melt the apologies on his lips. Kurt doesn't say anything. Sebastian comes back in with a mug of cocoa, which he didn't make. Well, not really. It is a chocolate powder mix and he wishes he could give Kurt something more pure, something that he truly meant, but all he has to offer is apple tea, cocoa-mix and his long arms.
He gets out two of his nicest blankets, thick and warm. Gets out two pillows. He wants Kurt to be comfortable. He is prepared to hear anything, everything, or nothing at all.
When Kurt sips his cocoa, and sets it back down, the clink of the mug on the table is the only sound in the air, until Kurt lets out a heart-wrenching sob.
"I want to go home." cries Kurt, his voice filled with agony and Sebastian wonders if he's done anything to upset him, but Kurt is about to fall apart again and his seams are ripping and if he doesn't move fast all his filling will fall out and there will just be the shell of a boy who once loved another boy laying on the floor of his living room.
He rubs his shoulders soothingly while Kurt takes in a shuddering breath.
"Calm down." Sebastian says, equals parts suggestion and order. Kurt collapses against his chest, takes a deep breath, and shuts his eyes.
"Now," Sebastian says, taking a deep breath as well. "Where is your home?"
"In Blaine's arms." Kurt says, voice empty, and to Sebastian, it's worse than when he was sobbing and shaking and screaming.
"I'm calling your father."
"Why?"
"To let him know that you're staying the night with me." He doesn't give Kurt time to answer and he dials the number. He kept a contact in his phone for the closest local mechanic, he didn't know cars very well. It turned out to be Hummel's Tires and Lube.
It rings twice. There is a shhuffling sound, and then a gruff voice answers with a "Hello?"
"Hello, Mr. Hummel. This is Kurt's friend, Sebastian. I wanted to let you now that Kurt is going to be staying the night with me."
"Why, is he alright?"
"He's doing okay, but we're just going to have a guy's night."
"Okay." His voice is solemn, like he knew he would be getting this phone call at some point. "You take care of him, okay?"
"I promise, Mr. Hummel." and then he hangs up.
When he walks back into the living room, he repeats three phrases like a mantra in his head.
Don't let him get too invested in his own thoughts. Don't leave him by himself for too long. Be his friend.
He takes a seat besides Kurt and switches on the television. Usually he would not condone such mind-numbing behavior, but Kurt needs just that.
He resolves to become Kurt's novacaine.
Two hours later, Kurt has fallen into a fitful sleep. He tosses and turns, grips fistfuls of blanket, sobs, cries out Blaine's name.
Sebastian lays on the floor watching with a cautious eye. He didn't want to lay next to Kurt on the couch, for a multitude of reasons, but the most prominent was that Kurt might mistake him for Blaine.
And then they'd have to start over.
Kurt rests easy for a bit.
His blankets fall off of him and Sebastian fixes them, heats up another cup of cocoa, puts it on the table beside Kurt. It rains while he sleeps. The rain hits the windows and the outside of the house. The sound is calming and Sebastian eventually falls asleep.
When Sebastian wakes up, Kurt is not under the covers. He is not in the bathroom. He is not in the kitchen, and he's not in the basement.
Sebastian calls out his name frantically. Searches the same places again and again. He is out of his mind with worry and he's very, very afraid to see what happened.
Suddenly a tall, however still not as tall as him, and thin person wearing oversized clothes. The sleeves of a very familiar shirt are rolled up and the same has happened with a pair of pants.
"I'm sorry," comes a soft voice. "I needed to get out of those clothes. i'll just borrow these for a bit, I'll wash them after, and-" Sebastian hushes Kurt with a finger to his lips.
"It's fine." he smiles.
Those clothes had been worn at different points of time, all with Blaine. There was still a grease stain on the sleeve near his hand where he had brushed it over Blaine's hair accidentally and got some of his gel on it.
The air was tense. Kurt looked up at Sebastian with questioning eyes. Silently they asked, "How long before you leave me?"
And so silently he answered, "Until you no longer need me."
"So, uh, do you need a drink? Food? Something? Anything?" He begins his walk to the kitchen, opens the refrigerator door.
"I would like some coffee." Sebastian freezes.
"Coffee?" He says slowly.
"Yes," Kurt says evenly. "At the Lima Bean." Sebastian's mouth goes dry but he nods his head anyway.
The drive to the Lima Bean is silent. Sebastian doesn't know what to say, but he thinks this is a bad, terrible, horrible idea. It's too soon. But another part of him says that it's just a coffee shop.
Just a coffee shop filled with millions of memories and emotions.
It's just a coffee shop.
They sit down at a table in the corner, and Sebastian offers to get his coffee for him.
"What will you have?"
"A medium-drip, please."
Sebastian doens't know, of course, that this was Blaine's order from the moment to they met, to the last moment they shared together.
Kurt sips it. He has never liked it all that much before, but now all he tastes is that taste on Blaine's lips whenever they kissed. He looks like he's in another world, living another life, stuck behind a pane of glass. Sebastian feels more like he's admiring something in a museum rather than staring, with cautious eyes, at his friend.
A giant clad in a white and red jacket walks past their table. He take a focused glance at Kurt and smirks.
"What's up, homo? Couldn't take your hair-gelled little hobbit anymore? Off whoring around with tall, slim, and meerkat-faced over here?" He looks content with himself, like he's so clever. Sebastian hates him. He rises, gets in Karofsky's face. Karofsky laughs.
"Oh please, what are you going to do? Blind me with a bottle of hairspray? Bedazzle all my clothes?" He looks back over to Kurt.
"Not talking, Hummel? That's alright. Perez over here is probably used to that..It's hard to talk with a cock in your mouth isn't it?"
Sebastian punches him in the face. His fist twists into the flesh of Dave's face. Dave falls back on a table, knocks a tray of mini-muffins and two lattes off of it. The two girls sitting there look at him in shock. Everyone in the shop stares at them. A waitress named Mindy gently tells them that they should leave, and then quieter, she whispers
"Great job.".
Sebastian grabs his coat in a hurry and brings Kurt outside.
"I'm sorry," he says to Kurt. "He just- He made me so mad." Kurt doesn't say anything back, and Sebastian hopes he hasn't really gotten Kurt upset. Hopes that he's not too far deep in thought again. He can nearly see the hazel eyes reflected in Kurt's.
"No one has ever done that for me before. Not even me. I probably should have, but I guess I supposed there was always a bit of truth to every jeer." he says in a small, soft voice. And in that moment he looks so very small to Sebastian. So scared and lost and childlike. His eyes are wide, that sharp blue-green that pierces through Sebastian's armour and digs down deep.
All of Sebastian's lewd remarks and sarcasm deteriorate at the sight of him. He stares at the lost boy, wants to find him. He wants to pick up the pieces of his heart and put them back together. He wants to make this broken boy whole. Wants him to smile again.
"So thank you." he says, voice still too quiet and small and far away.
"I- You're welcome." Sebastian says, rubbing his neck. "So, what do you want to do?" Kurt stares at the ground.
"If you're okay with it..Can we...visit the graveyard?"
Blaine had been buried six days after the car crash. The doctors had tried anything but too many vital organs were ruptured. He died three days after the car crash. At Kurt's request, though Burt had been the one to voice it, Blaine had been buried next to Elizabeth.
Sebastian could not deny him the visit to his beloved ones, so he slowly nodded his head. This might make everything worse, but if things were going to fall apart, it was better that they fall apart early in the game so they could be fixed later.
They get in the car and Sebastian turns on the radio. They listen to the current hits, written by mindless writers, and hope that they too, can achieve that mindset.
It starts to rain when they get to the graveyard. It's light at first and Kurt walks out and sets out for the spot because he knows exactly where it is, he's been visiting his mother since he was eight.
Then the rain is pouring down and everything is muddy and Kurt sits in front of the two graves and on the muddy ground and maybe the pants that he's borrowing will be ruined but Sebastian doesn't care, and he knows that Kurt would never do that if he wasn't here, in this place that brought back so many memories.
There is a look of silent focus on Kurt's face and he reads the inscription on Blaine's epitaph.
BLAINE ANDERSON. 1995-2012. BELOVED SON, BOYFRIEND, BROTHER, AND WARBLER. R.I.P.
The words seem like they're in a language he doesn't understand. He reads them over and over. He wonders why the numbers are limited, why they stop. He wonders about fate. Would Blaine have died that day anyway if he hadn't gotten in that crash, or had survived it? Would he have lived if that woman hadn't swerved while yelling at her children?
Kurt didn't know anymmore.
He sobs.
He is in the graveyard with an old enemy of his, wearing borrowed clothes and sitting in the mud. He is sobbing in the pouring rain while he mourns the deaths of two people he loves dearly.
He is pathetic.
Sebastian doesn't know what to do besides stand by the graves and he wants to hug Kurt but he doesn't know how Kurt will respond.
Kurt, still sobbing, decides it's best to go and he stands up to leave, but he slips in the mud, and-
A pair of long arms catch him and two hands grab his shoulders. Sebastian is using his soft voice, and even he doesn't know why. He feels the need to be delicate, feels the need to be quiet and gentle.
"Woah, there. Be careful. It's slippery out here." Kurt nods and Sebastian holds him to his side while they walk to the car. For a few moments it is silent and then Kurt speaks up.
"It's so weird." Sebastian looks over from the driver's seat for a split second, but he focuses on the road.
"What is?"
"Seeing it there. Seeing it be..real. This finalizes everything, and.."
"And...?" Sebastian prompts.
"I'm not sure if I should have gone to see it. It's real and solid, and I can feel its weight bearing down on me, resting on my shoulders."
Bullies. Locker Checks. Slurs. Hate-kiss. Heart Attack. Mother dies. Boyfriend dies. Spirit dies. Gone.
He doesn't know how Kurt is able to get up in the morning.
They arrive back at Sebastian's house and if Burt is worried he doesn't show it because there are no messages on the answering machine and Sebastian has no texts from him, but then again, he isn't sure if Burt knows how to text.
Kurt is drowning in the fabric of Sebastian's long jacket that Sebastian insist he wear and he's soaking wet and muddy. He wiped off his shoes before coming in. There is dirt in his hair and on his face. Grass stains on his knees, mud on his palms. He is defenseless and dirty.
The jacket is heavy especially when drenched and Sebastian helps him shrug it off. Kurt hops in the shower to wash away the grime and the sadness from earlier. Sebastian goes upstairs and tries to find some pajamas that will keep Kurt warm. He settles on his black thermal pajamas. He rarely ever wears them. He leaves a voicemail on Kurt's home phone and then brings the pajamas down. He knocks on the door, and Kurt opens the door, wearing a robe.
"Thank you." he says in a small voice, as Sebastian hands him the pajamas.
"No problem." he says sincerely.
Kurt towel dries his hair and then comes into the living room to find Sebastian. Sebastian is already laying on the couch, long limbs stretched out.
He sits up when Kurt enters the room, clad in the pajamas. Kurt tenses.
"Kurt?" he asks. Kurt does not reply. "Kurt. Kurt, what's wrong?" Kurt silently moves toward him and hugs him. There is a sob, a sob that unlocks a door, tears down a wall. It opens a floodgate and tears are dripping down Kurt's chin.
"Woah," Sebastian says in a comforting voice, pulling his arms out of the bind that Kurt's body against his has created, so he can properly wrap his arms about Kurt.
They stay that way. Eventually the sobs die down again. Kurt is embarrased, but he has no reason to be. This is the third time he has cried in front of Sebastian, and with good reason. Kurt falls asleep, his heartbeat calming down and make it easier to breathe for Sebastian. But now he really looks at Kurt, and he frowns. Kurt is thinner than before, paler, he looks tired and this sadness is definitely taking a toll on him. Blaine wouldn't want Kurt to react this way, Sebastian knew he wouldn't. Sebastian takes one of Kurt's limp hands in his own and whispers.
"Everything is going to be okay. You are going to be okay. I promise."
Then Sebastian falls asleep, too.