Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Fox and Diet Coke to the Coca-Cola corporation.
Warnings: Brief mention of violence, and Sebastian very callously references attempted suicide – I feel the need to apologize on his character's behalf.
I also feel the need to apologize for the length of time it took for me to finish this. I hope the length of the story sort of makes up for it. And to blondie1765, I honestly meant to get this up sooner so my sincerest apologies to you! And if you enjoy the pairing of Coopbastian, check out the user cooperbastian on tumblr who makes amazing gifsets (gifsets, not photosets – my bad!)
"Okay. I'm going to say it again. What the hell?" Blaine interrupted.
Sebastian and Cooper turned to look at him in surprise – they had forgotten he was there for a minute.
"No worries. Sebastian isn't trying to kill you," Cooper said brightly with a smile. Sebastian chuckled a little at his tone.
"And Cooper isn't trying to kill you either," Sebastian added, though much more dryly.
"Yeah," Blaine drawled, as if that information had been obvious. Cooper felt equally exasperated and relieved Blaine remained clueless at just how close he possibly came to dying if Sebastian really had been targeting him. "And why were you trying to kill each other?"
"We both thought that you were each others' targets," Cooper explained shrugging his shoulders. There, explanation finished!
Blaine just blinked at him.
"Good thing that was an ugly lamp," Sebastian said, gesturing to the broken appliance. It was acknowledgement if not an actual apology, but thankfully broke the silence.
"It was. How's your hand?" Cooper asked him, noticing it was swelling. It was the hand that Cooper had kicked the gun out of.
Sebastian flexed his fingers. "Not broken but a potential fracture. I'd take some ice."
"Sure, no problem," Cooper said. He tucked the knife that he was still holding back in its holder on the small of his back. He headed back for the kitchen but the look on Blaine's face stopped him.
"Blaine, are you going to be okay? You need to breathe, or something. Everything is fine now," Cooper said with concern.
"Everything is not fine! You…he…Sebastian had you at gunpoint, you had him pinned to the floor with a knife at his neck and now you're all fine and 'let me get you some ice?' Who the hell are you?" Blaine rushed out.
"He doesn't know?" Sebastian asked, looking at Cooper in confusion. Now that Sebastian knew Blaine was his brother, he would've assumed that Blaine knew the reality of Cooper's profession. The truth was Blaine didn't have a clue.
Cooper sighed. "No." He had hoped that if he put the conversation off long enough, it wouldn't have ever needed to happen. So much for that hope. "The ice is in the kitchen."
"No! I want an explanation now!" Blaine said stubbornly.
Suddenly the timer to the oven went off. The pizza was done, apparently. Cooper started laughing – the entire confrontation was finished in less time than it took for a pizza to bake. Cooper walked over to Blaine who was standing there with his arms across his chest defensively. He put his hands on Blaine's shoulders and pushed him so that Blaine was walking backwards into the kitchen.
"You'll get an explanation…in the kitchen," Cooper told him. "Want to stay for pizza?" he turned to Sebastian.
"What kind is it?"
"Meat-lovers."
"My favorite," Sebastian said with a leer. "…but sure, why not? The least you can do is feed me after fracturing my hand and drawing blood," Sebastian responded. He picked up the gun before following the pair of Anderson brothers into the kitchen.
"So now it's definitely a fracture? You're just sore that I kicked your ass," Cooper taunted, ignoring Blaine's sputtering. He finally stopped the beeping coming from the timer. He put on an oven mitt and pulled the pizza from the oven.
"I had you until Blaine distracted me with the fact that you're related," Sebastian defended. He set the gun on the table where Blaine proceeded to stare at it.
"You shouldn't get distracted. Losing your touch?" Cooper teased. He walked over to the freezer and pulled out a bag of frozen vegetables – it wasn't ice, but this was less work. He tossed the bag at Sebastian who immediately put it on his swelling hand.
Sebastian sighed at the comment and his face fell for a fraction. Before Cooper could say anything, though, Sebastian had recomposed himself. "And you should learn to put your knives someplace else. As well as keep control of your own gun," he taunted back.
"Shut up. At least I was packing unlike you and your defenseless self. And don't start making sexual jokes – my little brother is in the room," Cooper responded, cutting off any remark Sebastian may have wanted to make about 'packing.'
"Hey!" Blaine said, clearly offended. It had the desired effect, though, of getting Blaine to stop focusing on the gun on the table. "I am just as old as Sebastian - and most of the time those 'sexual jokes' were made at me!"
Cooper raised his eyebrows at Sebastian who smirked. "Obviously he had no idea that you were my brother or he wouldn't have dared," Cooper said to Blaine as he pulled a pizza cutter out of a drawer.
Blaine didn't seem to know whether to be offended or not.
"Oh, I would definitely have dared. Probably would've tried harder too – just to see the look on your face when I came out of his room the morning after," Sebastian said smugly.
"Excuse me?" Blaine sputtered as Cooper laughed.
"Just get the plates, Blaine," Cooper said in between his laughs. He divided up the pizza as Blaine grumbled but did as told. "There are drinks in the fridge, Sebastian. Help yourself," Cooper told him.
Sebastian went over and opened the fridge. "I'll take a Diet Coke," Blaine spoke up. Sebastian tossed him a can. "I'll have what you're having," Cooper said with a smirk.
"Such good taste," Sebastian complimented, smirking back as he took out two bottles of beer.
Blaine looked back and forth between the can of Diet Coke and the alcohol that Sebastian had set on the counter. Sebastian pulled out another bottle to wave teasingly at him. "I'll pass," Blaine said, keeping his can of pop. "This way I'll be sure to ask all the necessary questions."
Sebastian shrugged and put the third bottle of alcohol back in the fridge. Cooper sighed – this was it, apparently. He hadn't ever planned on telling Blaine about his profession…at least not until he had changed from field duty to desk duty (several, several years in the future) and even then he had only planned on telling Blaine about the desk duty part. Unfortunately, now he had no choice but to tell Blaine what was going on.
The three guys grabbed a few slices of pizza and their drink (Cooper grabbed Sebastian's since he only had one hand available) and moved to the couch in the entertainment room. Any room besides the messy living room would work for this conversation and at least the couch was comfortable. Cooper needed to remember to clean up the broken lamp sometime before his parents got home…the seat cushion he could just flip over.
"So. Shoot," Cooper said to Blaine as they settled down. He hadn't ever had to do the 'confession about your profession' conversation yet, but he had imagined it (and his family's reactions) in many different ways. His favorite was when he himself remained cool, calm, and retained a light sense of humor – his imaginary Blaine had always responded well to that approach, anyway.
"I thought we agreed we weren't going to kill anyone," Sebastian joked before taking a bite of pizza. Of course, Cooper had never thought about having Sebastian with him when he told Blaine. If he didn't also want to talk to Sebastian, Cooper definitely would've kicked him out right then.
Cooper rolled his eyes and Blaine looked stricken – as if they might still want to kill each other. He then recovered himself and said, "You don't work in public relations…?"
"Not exactly a question, but I think I understand where you're going with this," Cooper said with some humor. "No, I don't. That's a front. I'm actually what they call an 'agent.' My partner Sarah and I are given cases. That means sometimes we're gathering intelligence, sometimes we're recovering stolen goods, and …sometimes we're given targets to hit."
He was being deliberately vague but Blaine still looked extremely uncomfortable. "You...by 'hit' you mean…"
"I mean I kill them, Blaine," Cooper said gently. This was one of the reasons he didn't actually want Blaine to know about his real job. His little brother would never look at him the same.
"Oh," Blaine said with widened eyes. He looked to Sebastian. "And you…you do this too?"
"Yeah," Sebastian said nonchalantly with a shrug. Cooper was glad he wasn't at least talking with his mouth full. Why did he think this would be a good conversation to have over food?
"But I am not your target," Blaine said cautiously.
"You're no one's target, Blaine," Cooper reassured. "We've just run across each other before and assumed that the other was here because you were the target. Apparently Sebastian here was willing to kill me to save you," he teased Sebastian. "How romantic."
"Your dead body is romantic," Sebastian muttered spitefully. Cooper smirked at him.
"Not funny!" Blaine said. "This is all too real for you guys to joke about...dead bodies, okay? I mean…you – you've both killed people. You almost killed each other…"
"Blaine," Cooper said, snapping Blaine out of whatever horrible images his mind was conjuring. "Yes, Sebastian and I have both killed people. It's our job. They're bad people, okay?"
"That doesn't make it right!" Blaine argued.
"Don't," Sebastian ordered immediately. "Don't start a moral argument right now. Don't think about whether it's right or wrong, good or bad. If you want to ask questions, fine, but I'm not sticking around for another debate of whether I or my job is evil or whatever. This pizza isn't that good."
Cooper sighed. "He's right, as crass as he is. You can argue with me later. Is there anything else you want to ask?"
Blaine's eyebrows were still furrowed, but he didn't continue the argument. They continued to eat as they talked. The Anderson parents didn't know what Cooper's real job was – though their father knew that it was a front and most likely had guessed. It was apparently Sebastian's family business, which is why he started so young. The state's attorney wasn't his real father but part of the façade built after Paris. Sebastian and Cooper recounted a few of the occasions they had run across each other – mocking the other when necessary. Cooper gave Blaine some vague information about his last case – Blaine didn't need to know the details (and neither did Sebastian, who still worked for a competitor). Yes, what they did was shady and illegal but the CIA mostly left them alone as long as they chose their targets wisely.
"Is…is someone at Dalton your…target?" Blaine asked Sebastian. He clearly hadn't been paying too much attention to Sebastian and Cooper's previous conversation when they were still literally at each other's throats.
Sebastian rolled his eyes at the repetition but Cooper saw his body tense at the question. "I don't have a target right now," Sebastian reiterated. "I'm off-case."
"Why Dalton?" Cooper jumped in before Blaine could think to ask why Sebastian was off-case.
Sebastian evaluated Cooper. Then he shrugged – apparently the information wasn't important. "They suspected something about the French teacher so they put me in position."
"Mademoiselle?" Blaine asked with wide eyes.
Sebastian nodded. "Officially she's not a target as I'm just the preliminary sweep. Nothing's come up yet, though. And don't you dare breathe a word," he threatened Blaine.
Blaine shook his head. "No one would believe me," he said.
"I think your boyfriend would have no trouble believing that I kill people for a living," Sebastian said wryly.
Blaine sent a glare at Sebastian and Cooper let out a soft chuckle. This conversation was going much better than he had ever expected – Blaine was obviously overwhelmed with information, but was handling it well, it seemed. But just as Cooper was feeling a sense of relief, Blaine bit his lip and stared at the wall. Cooper steeled himself for Blaine's next question.
"I can't…I can't tell Kurt, can I?"
"Blaine…" Cooper trailed off. How did he explain that Blaine had to carry this secret, his secret, around with him and not share it with anyone else?
"Of course. Never mind," Blaine said quickly. He avoided eye contact as he stood up. "I…I'm going to use the bathroom," he said and left the room.
Cooper sighed. Blaine obviously needed some time.
"Well. I haven't done an 'explain the family business' conversation since my cousin two years ago. I forget how hard they take it," Sebastian said with some amusement.
"Shut up, Sebastian. I can only imagine your face when you went through initiation," Cooper replied. Sebastian chuckled.
With Blaine now absent, Cooper took this opportunity to bring the conversation back to the topic that had been bothering him since he had let Sebastian up off the floor. His face and his tone went serious. "Sebastian…how long have you been off-case?" Sebastian had said earlier 'since Paris'…but Cooper couldn't remember if anyone had mentioned when Paris had happened.
Sebastian avoided eye contact. "Since September."
"Well…shit."
"Yeah."
Agents rarely went off-case – only for the most extreme of circumstances. Losing your partner was one of them and as gruesome as Paris was rumored to have been, it definitely qualified as extreme. But even then, to be off-case for months? That was bad – especially considering how good Sebastian had been. "I've failed two psych evaluations," Sebastian continued softly after a moment of silence.
Cooper knew what Sebastian was thinking. If Sebastian failed his third psych evaluation, he would be permanently benched for at least the next three years – permanently benched meaning he couldn't even do preliminary sweeps like at Dalton. Sebastian would be stuck at whatever station he was assigned to do paperwork and internet research – something that neither he nor Cooper would find appealing.
"Derek would be gloating over his affect on you," Cooper said with a wry smile. It wasn't exactly comforting – but it caused Sebastian to give a small laugh.
"He'd probably be insulting me, preppy school boy that I am now. Captain of the Warblers, playing lacrosse…throwing slushies to ruin clothing and attempting to blackmail the other team with photoshop? How juvenile. And in the end I couldn't even get your brother to have sex with me. He'd be ashamed," Sebastian chuckled darkly.
"And I had you pinned to the floor. Can't forget that one," Cooper said teasingly in an attempt to lighten the mood. He decided to ignore the sex-with-his-brother thing. Both Derek and Sebastian were like that with their inappropriateness and Cooper would've hated to see that disappear with Derek's death.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. "I've been off-case for months but I reacted first when I saw you in the doorway. I nicked your knife and had control of the gun. Hands down I'm the better agent."
"Just keep thinking that," Cooper humored him but was glad that Sebastian could at least meet his eyes again. Cooper brought back the serious tone by reaching over and putting his hand on top of Sebastian's uninjured one. "He would've wanted you to get your act together. High school isn't your scene and even bashful school boys get boring after awhile."
Sebastian gave a small smile. The school boy comment was definitely something Derek would have said, which the reason that Cooper said it. "I was fine…or thought I was," Sebastian said. "Then some idiot went and hung himself in an attempted suicide right before my second evaluation." Cooper winced. One of the few details he knew about Paris was that the body had been hung off a bridge. That would've brought up bad memories for sure. "And after all this your brother is never going to sleep with me," Sebastian broke the tension with his exasperated huff.
Cooper couldn't help but laugh. Then Blaine walked back into the room, setting off another round of laughs.
"Oh my God," Blaine said, stopping in the doorway. He looked just as shocked as when he had walked in on Sebastian holding Cooper at gunpoint. "Actually, you know what? I shouldn't even be surprised," he continued on, throwing his hands up in the air. "I obviously don't have a clue what's going on anymore."
"What?" Cooper laughed in surprise. He shared equally amused and confused looks with Sebastian.
Blaine pointed accusingly to where Cooper had taken Sebastian's hand. "You guys went from killing each other to practically best friends in two minutes. Now I come back and you're all over each other."
"I don't think you understand the phrase 'all over each other,'" Sebastian said with an amused expression. "Because this," he said while holding up his and Cooper's combined hands, "doesn't count. But I would be happy to demonstrate it for you." He shot a smirk at Cooper.
"Blaine, you're overreacting," Cooper admonished. He did, however, gently squeeze Sebastian's hand before letting it go.
"Me? My brother turns out to be some super secret spy ninja as well as a guy I thought I was friends with for months who both happen to know each other and are now holding hands and I'm simply overreacting?" Blaine squeaked.
Sebastian cocked an amused brow at Blaine. He then turned to Cooper with a leer. "I guess it's a good thing we didn't tell him about that time we got down and dirty in Barbados, huh?"
"Oh my God, this isn't happening!" Blaine said with wide eyes before turning around and walking away.
"Blaine, he was joking!" Cooper called out to him, but all he heard was Blaine's bedroom door close in response. "You're an ass," Cooper told Sebastian, who only laughed.
"But a sexy one," Sebastian replied with a wink. "I am a bit offended that he was more upset over our sexual liaison than the fact that we're – what was that, 'super secret ninjas?'"
"Spy ninjas," Cooper corrected as he got up from the couch. "And we didn't have sexual liaisons."
Sebastian drained the last of his beer and stood as well. "Not yet, anyway."
"You should go," Cooper said but with a fond smile. This was the Sebastian he was used to. "I think I need to talk to Blaine alone for a bit before he goes mental. Are you going to be okay to drive?" He picked up their dirty plates and empty bottles.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Sebastian assured him and followed Cooper into the kitchen. Cooper set everything in the sink while Sebastian went to the freezer where he tossed the mostly thawed bag of frozen vegetables back in. "You should know that one beer isn't enough to dull my impeccable senses."
"I remember," Cooper said, referencing the memory of the last time they and their partners were drinking together. He saw the mischievous gleam in Sebastian's eye and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms. "What are you doing?" He questioned with amusement as Sebastian glided over in front of him.
"I'm about to persuade you to change your mind about those sexual liaisons. And you still owe me for my hand. It hurts," Sebastian replied with a slight pout that Cooper knew was a complete act. He did not, however, move away as Sebastian put his hands on the counter on either side of him, creating the illusion that he was trapped.
"You poor baby," Cooper said playfully as Sebastian leaned in.
"Yeah, poor me," Sebastian retorted softly, his gaze moving from Cooper's eyes to his lips.
When Sebastian kissed him Cooper kissed back, even going so far as to reach a hand around to tangle his fingers through the hair at the nape of Sebastian's neck. It was a relatively chaste kiss considering the amount of innuendos Sebastian had been throwing around, merely the catch and drag of their slightly dry lips against each other. It was Cooper who took the next step in using his teeth, tugging on Sebastian's lower lip. One of Sebastian's hands moved to Cooper's waist, slowly sliding up underneath his shirt to caress warm skin. The other hand – the one headed to steal the knife at his back – Cooper caught by the wrist. Sebastian let out a pleasant hum and licked his lips as Cooper pulled away.
"Nice try," Cooper said softly in a low tone. His smirk matched the one on Sebastian's face. Derek had pulled the same trick on him – successfully – when they had all been drinking in Copenhagen. Sebastian's eyes were bright with happiness, though, so he figured the repeat had been worth it – and the kiss was by no means unpleasant, either.
"I think I'll still count that as a win," Sebastian replied cheekily as they simultaneously released each other. "I'll have that sex escapade with you yet," he continued as he backed away.
"Maybe when you're finally of age in all fifty states," Cooper replied with a grin. He remained where he was, leaning against the counter, watching Sebastian walk towards the front door.
"Of course you pick that law to abide by," Sebastian drawled back over his shoulder. When Sebastian reached the door, he faced Cooper with a look softer than any he had worn all night. "And…thanks," he said quietly but sincerely.
Cooper merely nodded in acknowledgement. Sebastian could have been referencing a number of things – not killing him in the beginning, feeding him pizza and beer, kissing him back. He guessed that it was about Derek, though. He only hoped that the next time he saw Sebastian, it would be back out on the field. If he was old enough, Cooper might even contemplate kissing him again.
Sebastian's soft look morphed back into a cocky smirk. "Oh…before I forget," he said impishly. "You probably want your phone back." Sebastian then pulled a cell phone – Cooper's android – out of his pocket and tossed it to Cooper. The phone that he had thought had been in his front pocket all night. He had no idea when Sebastian had nicked it since it had definitely been before the kiss.
"Damn you, Sebastian," Cooper sighed, slipping his phone back in its usual place. He didn't even need to check – he was certain that he now had Sebastian's number in his phone. The only question was what name Sebastian had put it under.
Sebastian merely responded with a hearty wink before he was out the door.