Sebastian hated working over his vacations. Wasn't the point of being an artist that e got to make his own hours, work alone, and spend as much time at home having all sorts of wild and crazy sex with his gorgeous husband?
Not this time, apparently. No sir-ee. Since City Hall decided to do a complete renovation, including all original artwork from renowned local artists, he had been stuck in meetings and consultations nearly all week while his beautiful Kurt spent long hours occupying himself at their vacation home just outside the city. Kurt said he didn't mind, seeing as they were doing some renovations themselves, and being alone gave Kurt the opportunity to match fabric to color swatches in peace.
But Sebastian had enough of forgoing noon sex in favor of another discussion with regard to whether or not a Monet inspired acrylic painting of water lilies would be appropriate for the treasurer's office or not.
Sebastian snuck out quietly when a heated argument over abstract public sculptures for the main road islands broke out, grabbing a blank canvas in the guise of starting a raw sketch, and slipped away under the cover of his silver Mustang. Sebastian hit the interstate and sped all the way home, making it to the tiny summer home in record time.
Sebastian loved how quiet and secluded it was in this, their small patch of heaven. The seclusion was perfect because no one ever complained about their loud sex, and the quiet was ideal for finding Kurt, since he sang almost all the time when he was alone.
Sebastian stood still, but he could hear no singing. Kurt's Navigator was parked outside so he knew his husband was home. He ran through the rooms, the blank canvas tucked beneath his arm, obnoxiously making as much noise as possible to alert his husband of his arrival.
"Kurt!" Sebastian called, walking through the vacant kitchen quickly in search of his muse. "Kurt! I need your sweet ass!"
"I thought you had to work this afternoon."
"I am working," Sebastian explained. "I'm doing a portrait of a gorgeous man, as soon as I find him."
"No," Kurt chuckled. "You're supposed to be doing a landscape for the new city planner's office."
"No," Sebastian insisted, inspecting another empty room. "I'm painting you. Naked if I have my way."
"You just want to fuck," Kurt teased.
"There's nothing wrong with that," Sebastian growled suggestively. "Now, where the hell are you? This house isn't that big."
"Out here," Kurt called back. "I'm installing the new track lighting."
Sebastian turned the corner to the patio that they had just added on to give Sebastian a protected outdoor work space and there was Kurt – his intrepid Kurt – braving their fifty year old rickety ladder to install a row of lights with a chrome runner and bonnets. Sebastian winced when he saw the ladder shift and tilt beneath Kurt's weight, but Kurt seemed oblivious, balancing precariously on his toes to screw the fixture to the wall.
"I really wish you'd let me do that, gorgeous," Sebastian said, trying to hide the concern in his voice. He put the canvas down and held the ladder secure beneath his husband. "I mean, look at you reaching up like that. I am taller than you."
"Sebastian," Kurt admonished, looking down with playful blue eyes, "spraying your hair until it stands up to oblivion doesn't count as you being taller than me."
At that moment, Kurt moved sideways and the ladder lurched. Sebastian reached out in time to keep Kurt from toppling head first into the retaining wall.
"Okay, that's enough," Sebastian said, pulling on Kurt's leg. "Get down now."
"But, I only have one screw left."
"I don't care," Sebastian said, this time more firmly. "Get your ass down off that ladder now."
"Geez," Kurt huffed, climbing down the rungs. "You certainly have a thing for my ass."
"Well, it happens to be a perfect ass." Sebastian grabbed Kurt's ass and squeezed for emphasis. "And I don't want anything happening to it."
Sebastian pulled Kurt close, relishing the way his body fit perfectly against his own, like Kurt was carved out of the same piece of stone - like they were made for each other.
"So, you only care about my ass?" Kurt asked, gazing up at Sebastian, tilting his head and pouting in mock offense.
"Among other things." Sebastian captured Kurt's lips quickly, not waiting for an invitation, trying his best to kiss the teasing pout from Kurt's lips.
If Kurt's whimpers were any indication, Sebastian was winning.
The sound of Sebastian's cell phone ringing called a foul on his game.
"Um, you should probably get that," Kurt tried to say, his voice muffled by Sebastian's lips pressing insistently against his.
"Nope," Sebastian replied.
"But, it's probably city hall, wondering where their painter is." Kurt laughed when he finally managed to pull away.
Sebastian huffed, narrowing his eyes as his expression became resolute.
"I'm going to answer that, just long enough to tell them to fuck off, and then I'm getting you naked."
Sebastian peppered Kurt's cheeks with kisses to a symphony of his giggles, then with a heavy handed swat to his backside, Sebastian reluctantly released his husband and raced inside to answer the phone.
Sebastian reached the phone just as it stopped ringing.
"Oh, no," Sebastian whined jokingly. "I didn't get here in time. Whatever shall I do?"
It didn't matter to him anyway, since no power on heaven or earth could have convinced him to leave his husband just as he was preparing to ravish him.
Sebastian heard an odd noise, nothing too foreboding, but it somehow managed to fill him from head to toe with dread. He didn't know how he could feel the ladder tilt from all the way in the kitchen, but the sensation was like a taut line tugging at his heart. He felt the sway as if he was standing on it instead of Kurt. After that swoop of sudden inexplicable nausea hit him, everything happened absurdly fast, as if the universe was saying, "Fuck you, Sebastian Smythe! I don't believe in second chances."
He heard Kurt yelp, then a loud metallic clatter, and a horrifying crack, like pottery hitting the pavement.
"Kurt!" Sebastian screamed in panic, having the sense of mind to grab his phone and start dialing 9-1-1, knowing in his heart that his husband would need an ambulance. "Kurt, honey! Are you al…"
Sebastian got his answer the minute he broke through the patio door.
No, Kurt wasn't alright.
Kurt definitely wasn't alright.
It rained the whole day when they buried Kurt. It was such a change from the weeks of perfect weather, and Kurt had mentioned how they needed a good, all day rain storm to force them inside where they could snuggle together on the sofa and just listen to the drops fall. Kurt was a quintessential pluviophile – he found peace in the rain.
Sebastian hated the rain. He hated getting wet. He hated when his soaked clothes stuck to his skin and the dripping cold water ran down into his socks. He hated the sloshing inside his shoes, and the way they never completely dried. But as much as he hated the rain, he was a pluviophile for Kurt.
He loved Kurt, and the rain made Kurt happy.
So Sebastian stood beside Kurt's casket beside his open grave and waited in the rain. He waited while the mourners paid their respects. He waited while everyone hugged and cried. He waited until the final acquaintance had wondered somberly away. He waited until they lowered Kurt into the ground, and even after there was nothing left to witness, he waited until nightfall, when the clouds parted and the stars came out.
Burt Hummel returned a little before midnight in search of his missing son-in-law, but Sebastian still refused to leave. So Burt waited with him, even though Sebastian was sopping wet, stifling sniffles that he knew would bloom into a full-blown cold.
At some point Sebastian finally convinced himself that Kurt wasn't going to magically return, so he took Burt's hand and let himself be led away from his husband forever.
Sebastian's forehead burned with fever by the time Burt got him back to the little summer house that was no longer a home, but Sebastian wouldn't let Burt stay. And as much as Burt objected, as much as he put up a fight, in the end he didn't have the strength to battle his own grief and Sebastian's, and he left the man alone.
Sebastian walked through the dark house, straight out back to the patio, struck by a morbid sense of déjà vu. He sat down heavily on the wicker chaise and looked up at the clear sky, but his vision of the stars was obscured by something shiny hanging just a few feet above his head.
The light fixture.
The stupid track lighting.
Sebastian gazed up at it in shock as it dangled on its two screws.
The fixture was here, perfect and installed except for one damn screw, but because of it, Kurt was dead.
Sebastian snapped.
He looked around in a panic, spotting an abandoned hoe over by the retaining wall, not a few feet from where Kurt had fallen. Sebastian grabbed it, and with a renewed vigor, he attacked the lights.
"God damned mother fucking lights!" he screamed. "What the fuck did we need these for, Kurt? Why did you have to put them up when I asked you to wait! Why didn't you wait, Kurt? Why couldn't you just sit on your fucking ass and wait!?"
The sound of the hoe hitting the lights and the brick behind it resonated. The force caused the gardening implement to vibrate painfully in Sebastian's hands, but he only tightened his grip and struck harder.
"Fuck you, Kurt! Why did you have to put up these God damned lights!" Sebastian shattered the bulbs sending a spray of fine glass particles falling all over his hair and clothes. "I told you to wait! I told you I'd do it! I didn't need the lights! I need you, Kurt!"
He destroyed the lights, and managed to chip a good portion of the brick out of the wall as well. He stumbled back into the house, rifling through the cabinets for a bottle of whiskey, tossing aside already empty bottles until his hand came in contact with one that felt mostly full, and he pulled it down. Except this bottle wasn't a spare bottle of Jack. It was Kurt's solitary bottle of tequila.
Sebastian's first urge was to toss the bottle up against the wall. He looked around him for an open space to toss it when he caught sight of the paintings. A brand new crop of paintings he had started working on for a new show in the fall – all of them featuring his muse…all of them featuring Kurt. He took a long swig of the tequila to steady his nerves, and with his body burning hot and fire in his veins, he grabbed up the paintings, every last one he could find. He carried them outside, dropping them into an undignified pile on the bare earth. He doused them all with the tequila, gritting his teeth as the golden liquid violated the paint, in some cases causing it to bleed down the canvas. When the bottle was just about drained, he rummaged through his pockets for his silver Zippo. He flipped it open with a click, a small orange flame springing to life. Sebastian tossed the lighter into the pile. The flame barely touched the heap before the whole thing went up in a blaze.
"There Kurt," Sebastian grumbled bitterly, his throat raw from screaming and alcohol, "was it worth it? Were the Goddamned lights worth it? It's done. All of it. No more muse…no more you…no more paintings. I'm done."
Sebastian slowly drained the rest of the tequila while he watched the love of his life and all of his work devoured by flame.
Already weak from being tired and sick, Sebastian drank himself to sleep. It seemed like too much work to trudge back to the house and climb into bed, so he lay down on the hard packed earth next to the destroyed canvases that still managed to maintain a slow burn. Everything smelled of acrid smoke and Sebastian hoped that it would seep into his skin and suffocate his brain. Or maybe an errant cinder would jump onto his alcohol soaked clothes and he would burn to death in his sleep. Maybe a sudden temperature drop would freeze him to the ground where he lay. Either way, without Kurt, his bed wasn't his bed, his home wasn't a home, and Sebastian wished more than anything that he could just find the quickest and most efficient way to die.
Sebastian had hoped that he would black out, surrender to oblivion where time passed by but he would have no memory of it, but he had no such luck. Locked into sleep, he had the same dream, over and over, of Kurt falling from the ladder, and no matter what Sebastian did, no matter how fast he ran, no matter if he never went into the house to answer the phone, Kurt still died.
This was an absolute. It never changed.
At some point before dawn, Sebastian heard a rustle like footfalls in the dirt, and he struggled through the fog in his brain to open his eyes. If he was going to be mauled by coyotes, or even a mountain lion, he wanted to know. But what he saw was a man, at least what looked like a man, and a beautiful man at that, approaching the pile slowly as if a sick, drunk, and urine smelling Sebastian wasn't lying in a heap just a few feet away. The man bent over the pile of burnt canvases, a shaking hand pressed to his lips, and a small, pained gasp escaped his mouth.
Sebastian had an overwhelming urge to reach out to the man, to apologize for setting the paintings on fire, but for what reason, he couldn't explain. Sebastian groaned, trying to form words with his dry, sticky mouth. He rolled slightly, blinking his eyes to get a better look at his paintings' solitary mourner, but when he opened his eyes again, the man was gone.
Sebastian was awoken again after sunrise by the sound of laughter. It broke through the haze of his alcohol and fever-induced stupor. It was high-pitched and familiar. It sounded like heaven and home and the future Sebastian had always dreamed of having, even back in those days when Kurt was dating Blaine and they could barely stand to be around each other. It was all a game back then, and it was a fun game to play…until it wasn't. Until he realized that he didn't want to play games any more.
He just wanted Kurt.
Sebastian opened his eyes and rolled his head in search of it, training his eyes back on the house and the patio that he planned to tear out brick by brick by hand as soon as he was physically able. Somewhere in the midst of his pounding headache and the fog that refused to lift he saw piercing blue eyes – blue like the sky in summer – staring back at him from behind a golden hibiscus. It was in that exact spot that Sebastian had planned his painting; the one he had rushed home to start. A painting of Kurt, lounging on a chaise in front of the fireplace with the golden hibiscus behind him, catching the highlights in his hair.
Sebastian sat up too quickly in hopes of seeing who the eyes belonged to, but his head started to swim, his stomach lurched, and before he knew it, he was on his hands and knees, vomiting violently all over the ground.
Sebastian heaved until there was nothing left in him. He looked back at the house with watery eyes but this time he saw nothing. He got a glimpse of himself, black Armani suit stained with dirt and vomit, and knew that if Kurt could see him, he would tear him a new one. So slowly, ever so slowly, and with that thought lodged in his mind, he crawled back to the house on his hands and knees. He still burned with fever, but his head began to clear, and even as small pebbles cut into his hands he continued to crawl, distracting himself by considering his options.
By the time he made it to the patio, his decision seemed pretty clear.
Sebastian didn't want to live, not without Kurt, and even though he could hear the voices of his family and friends trying to convince himself otherwise, his mind was made up.
He would settle his affairs.
He would make sure his immediate family who always loved him, who always supported him, who loved Kurt like one of their own, was provided for.
He would finish his commissions, complete his obligations.
And when the houses were put up on the market, and all was said and done, he would find the quickest, foolproof, and most surefire way of being reunited with his husband again.
