"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"Language, Kurt. Jesus. You've got a kid right there."

Kurt quickly looked back at Talulah. She didn't seem to be too affected by his words. She didn't even look up, too busy playing with her dolls to notice the obscenities.

"What are you doing here?" He asked once he whipped his head back around to look at Sebastian. Sebastian who was on his door step at the exact time he had agreed to meet with ssstudio…

"I'm here to see the couch. This is apartment 41, right?" Sebastian asked, a look of amusement on his face as he peeked in a little more, getting very close to invading Kurt's personal space in the doorway.

"That it is." Kurt said, tensing up a bit, crossing his arms over his chest. He had a sneaking suspicion that this was a joke. A stupid joke if anything, but it seems like something Sebastian would do. Though there wasn't much validity to that thought since he didn't really know Sebastian. They still texted pretty regularly and Sebastian had even allowed him to add him as a friend on his private Facebook account (he had a different name on there, Baz Smith, to weed out… well, people like Kurt trying to find him) so they were… something.

Acquaintances seemed too casual for people who had their own inside jokes and sent each other pictures of stupid things they saw on the streets but friends seemed way too personal. Sebastian knew things that not even the people he saw several days of the week at work knew, like the fact that he was going through two of the biggest life events there are at the same time. But apart from the fact that those things were happening, he didn't know much else. Didn't even know why they were getting a divorce.

Friends seemed too personal. But maybe that was because the only people he considered friends were the people he had known for years who knew his deepest, darkest secrets. Sebastian was just… a person he knew.

Certainly not someone he felt comfortable with coming into his house. Especially while Talulah was there.

Not that he thought Sebastian would like, tag his walls or steal his baby. He wasn't the nefarious mustache twirling villain Kurt saw him as in high school. Just a guy who had an obnoxious sense of humor who could have him laughing until it hurt to irritating him in two seconds, flat.

A guy who wanted to buy his couch, apparently.

"Aren't you going to let me in?" Sebastian asked, the amused smile still on his face, an eyebrow cocked. Kurt sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and thought about it for a moment before wordlessly moving aside and allowing him to come in. He closed the door behind him as Sebastian wandered in.

Instead of going to look at what he came here to see, he wandered over to the wall still full of pictures of he and Blaine. After that night Kurt didn't have the heart to take them down just yet. Plus he hadn't had time to print out some different pictures to put in their place yet. He had an entire album on his desktop with options, some really golden ones he couldn't believe he overlooked when they first started constructing this particular wall years ago.

"This is disgusting." Sebastian said with a laugh, jabbing his thumb at one of the pictures. Kurt followed him and his eyes followed where he was pointing. He and Blaine were in the kitchen of the loft, wearing matching aprons that Kurt had bought as a gag gift at the end of Blaine's freshman year of college. One saying "Mr. Cooks It All" and the other "Mr. Eats It All." Blaine had gotten the freshman fifteen big time and Kurt took it on himself to teach Blaine how to cook healthy food for himself, much like he had done for his dad years before. Blaine suggested them getting silly matching aprons for their cooking lessons and Kurt spent several days internet browsing before finding the perfect ones.

In the picture, Blaine has his arm wrapped around a fake-annoyed Kurt, chocolate sauce covering half of his grinning face. He remembered the caption on Instagram read something like:

Ready to beat ya, Freshman Fifteen! …Tomorrow.

Even though Blaine kept on that weight and added a few more pounds throughout the years, those aprons got a good amount of use. They were lost in one of their several moves a few years ago, though. Shame. There weren't nearly as many cute aprons for a single cook.

"You think that's bad? I, personally, think this one is one of our worst." Kurt said, pointing to one of the ones towards the top, where he couldn't reach. He put it up there for a reason. It was hard to see.

After Kurt's senior ditch day at Six Flags, Blaine decided that he too wanted to go to the theme park. Kurt didn't particularly like amusement parks. They were crowded and hot and sticky. The only time he had been even a little bit enthusiastic about going to one was when they went to Disney World and even then it was a bit too much for him. Clean, though, he had to give them that.

But Kurt did most anything Blaine wanted so they went one-on-one. Blaine went on every single roller coaster, mostly by himself since Kurt didn't feel like dying today, thanks. He had held Blaine's obnoxiously big cotton candy as he spent a solid fifty dollars trying to win Kurt a stuffed bear until Kurt finally forced him to cut his losses and stop. The gesture was sweet but if Kurt was going to be standing in the sun for half an hour, he was at least going to be getting on a ride at the end of it.

They were about to finally retire for the day when they passed by one of those shops that took old timey souvenir photos and Blaine decided that he and Kurt just had to have a picture in those stupid costumes. Kurt, never one to turn down the opportunity to play dress up even when he was filthy and exhausted, went along with it and the photo turned out absolutely awful. The teenage employee hadn't centered the camera so only half of Kurt's body was in the shot and the whole photo was just slightly blurry to where it wasn't obvious but still really irritating to look at. The kid offered to retake it but Blaine thought it was hilarious and spent another fifty dollars on it.

"That's awful." Sebastian laughed, his eyes flicking from the photo down to Kurt.

"He paid money for that. Real, actual money. It's been hanging in every apartment we've ever had. I can't wait to get rid of it," Kurt explained, chuckling with him. He was glad it was starting to get easier to look back on those moments in his life. Life was about to get a lot harder pretty soon and he really didn't need every little reminder of Blaine weighing down on him all the time. He got enough of it with the curly-haired toddler running around.

"So, ssstudio," Kurt moved to the couch, gesturing to it. "Here it is. Nothing really special. It's still in good condition, I'd say. Only a few years old." He tossed a glance over his shoulder to make sure Talulah was still in her spot playing with her toys.

"I don't know… Is there some history behind it that I should be aware of?" Sebastian asked, taking a few steps closer to it, looking it over.

"Um. Well, there might be some baby spit up on the back of one of the cushions. But I made sure to clean most of it whenever it happened to it wouldn't stain." Kurt explained.

"Good to know but… not really what I was talking about." Sebastian wasn't looking at Kurt now, but from what he could see of the other's face he could tell he was smirking again.

"Um. I mean, if you're wondering whether or not I have some kind of weird, sentimental attachment to it, I don't. I just wanna get rid of it. Get something… new in here."

Ever since he had finally, officially kicked Blaine out, he felt very uncomfortable in his home. This place specifically, the one they got to be their first ever family home, was very much a combined effort. Kurt usually decorated their other places with the exception of the loft which was a team effort but this time around Blaine wanted to pitch in and help. Make it feel like his home too since it was going to be a lot more permanent than the rest. They had bought it. It was completely theirs. Something that was going to have to be split somehow even though it was just Kurt that was going to be the one living in it and paying it off for probably the rest of his life.

Now that it was just going to be him and Talulah and the baby, he needed this space to be his. He had never in his life had his own apartment, never had the opportunity to see what an entire place that was totally his would be like.

Step number one of a very long, expensive redecorating process was getting rid of that couch. It had been a placeholder for a better one, just so they had furniture when they first moved in but remained there. If Kurt was feeling more poetic it might be like a symbol of him getting rid of the placeholder in their relationship. Just stay there, make the money, feed the baby until everything's settled down and we can be in love again.

It never happened.

"Again, good. Noted. But what I'm asking is if there has been, y'know… relations —"

Kurt's eyebrows flew up in surprise and he quickly jumped in to reply.

"No! God no! Oh my god, no. It would be going in the dumpster if that were the case. Or set on fire." He could feel his face starting to burn up. Kurt Hummel was way more mature now than when he had been a blushing virgin in high school but that still felt very private and very, very uncomfortable to be talking about in any capacity in front of Sebastian Smythe. His friend-not-friend-slash-former-enemy Sebastian Smythe.

"Good," The other man said, a cocky grin on his face as he moved to lounge on it. "I'll take it." Kurt let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank god. I was really not looking forward to having any more strange men traipsing around my apartment." Kurt chuckled as he moved to sit on the edge of the couch. Sebastian feigned offense, clutching his chest dramatically.

"I'm not a strange man!"

"Have you ever met yourself? You're pretty strange." Kurt retorted and sat down, pushing Sebastian's long, outstretched legs out of the way, getting a scoff in response.

"Says the man who has a collection of Beanie Babies in storage."

"I told you that in confidence!" Kurt cried, swatting at the legs now moving to rest on Kurt's lap.

He was still holding out hope that those things would make him very rich one day. Especially the Princess Diana one.

"So," Kurt said, causing Sebastian's snickers to die down a bit, "When can you come get this thing out of here?"

"Today work?" Kurt's eyebrows flew up once again. "Like… within the next hour. My roommates already rented a U-Haul and they're a few blocks away with it." Kurt let out a disbelieving laugh.

"Sure." Was all he could say. Sebastian flashed him a grin and pulled out his phone to let his roommates know that they could come up.

Sebastian had told him a little bit about his roommates in the past, but experiencing them in person was certainly… different.

Sebastian was the oldest out of all of them at twenty-nine, with two of them being in their mid-twenties and another who was only twenty himself, a student at NYU. And of course they were all extremely good looking.

Andrew, a lanky guy with bottle cap glasses (for prescription or fashion even Sebastian didn't know) hair to the heavens and legs that went on for days came in first, immediately spotting Talulah and squealing in glee.

The next was the youngest, Mason, a mini-David Karofsky as Sebastian once described him. He was a total beefcake that stood at a hilarious five-foot-five. He was simultaneously drowning in and filling out his hoodie, rolling his eyes as Andrew rushed to kneel next to the confused looking Talulah, raving about how adorable she was.

Last was Emery, the tallest man he had ever seen in his life which was saying a lot as Finn had stood at six-foot-four and was often regarded as the Jolly Green Giant incarnate. Other than his height he was quite normal looking, sporting a nicely groomed beard and a bald head. He had to duck to get through the door.

It took everything in him not to laugh at the image of the four of them standing together, trying to figure out the best way to maneuver the couch out. They were the most rag-tag group of people he had ever seen in his life, with the exception of the New Directions who housed almost every type of person to exist at one point or another during their short stint at McKinley High.

Kurt, trying not to stare too much, moved to sit with Talulah, watching as she played with her dolls. After a while Andrew drifted over to them and struck up a conversation with Kurt about their respective kids. He learned that Andrew worked at a daycare not too far from where Kurt lived and that of course, they were always taking new kids and that he would love to see Talulah's cute face there sometime.

"Dude, can you stop going on about pinchable cheeks for like two seconds and help us?" Mason griped.

"Is that an invitation? Because I could talk for hours about your pinchable cheeks, baby," Andrew flashed him a wink and Mason immediately turned beet red. "Plus, I'm not the one who got drunk on Smirnoff Ice and RKO'd the couch until it snapped in half like the Titanic. So." This made Mason turn even more red somehow and he could even see Emery looking a bit embarrassed. Sebastian gave Kurt an amused look and Kurt returned it, the smile on his face almost painful.

Andrew didn't put up much of a fight after that, moving to the others and helping lift the couch. Kurt moved to scoop up Talulah, offering to open the door for them at the bottom of the stairwell. They all agreed and Kurt went down there to wait for them. He sang softly to Talulah as they waited, shutting up once the boys got closer and he could hear them bickering at each other, yelling "pivot!" repeatedly until one of them broke and started to laugh and they had to take a break to calm down. This happened at least three more times, causing the good-natured fighting and the "shut the fuck ups" to continue all the way to the ground floor.

Once he could see them coming down the last set of stairs he moved to open the door. He stepped outside to give them more space and prop the door with his foot and it was a little colder than he expected. He wrapped his cardigan around Talulah a bit, exchanging nods and polite smiles with each man as they passed through the doorway.

He watched as they got the couch, the one he fed and burped and napped with his first baby on, into the U-Haul and felt the tiniest bit nostalgic. He wasn't lying when he told Sebastian he didn't have a huge emotional attachment to it, but there was something about seeing it packed away for good, to see its new owners testing it out upstairs that made him feel something. And as stupid as it sounded (since it wasn't an unwanted puppy or one of his favorite sweaters that he outgrew) he was glad it was getting a good home.

"You can see it whenever you'd like." Sebastian had told him, that ever-present smirk on his face as he doled out six hundred dollars cash from his wallet and put it in Kurt's hand. Kurt and Sebastian said their goodbyes to each other and when Kurt prompted Talulah to say goodbye as well, she threw her tiny had up in the sky and waved towards the moving truck, yelling:

"Bye-bye, couch!"