The heater finally shut off in the morning before they woke up. With all the windows open, the temperature in the apartment plummeted. The two of them had been too tired to get up and close them, so they climbed beneath the thick comforter and wrapped their arms around each other, holding tight till they stopped shivering and drifted back to sleep.
They woke up hours later when Sebastian's bladder decided he had slept enough, and the sun streaming in the windows had started to burn through Kurt's eyelids. Before they could fall back into each other's arms and make love again, Kurt popped out of bed, gave Sebastian a quick kiss on the cheek, and bounced off to the bathroom to take a shower.
It never dawned on Sebastian to stop him. He lay his head back on the pillow and smiled, chuckling as he thought back on earlier this morning, lying behind Kurt, making love to him slowly. Sebastian's cock twitched recalling the sound of Kurt's breathy moans, the feeling of his silky skin as it surrounded him, the intense heat of his body. Sebastian's hand started to creep beneath the comforter when the sound of the rushing shower water snapped him out of his daydreaming.
"Oh, shit!" he yelled, shoving the blanket off and leaping out of bed. He raced to the bathroom and made it in enough time to hear Kurt let out an inhuman screech. Sebastian burst through the door and threw open the shower curtain. He quickly lifted a shivering Kurt out of the spray and set him down on the floor outside the tub.
"I'm so sorry, Kurt!" Sebastian quickly went to work adjusting the water temperature, a process which included turning off the cold, turning the hot on high, and banging on the wall a few times. He put his hand under the water to check if it worked. The water wasn't hot by any means, but it was the best he could do.
"There we go." Sebastian turned back to Kurt, who was biting his lower lip, stifling a snicker. Sebastian couldn't help himself. The half-smile on Kurt's face made him burst out laughing. He wrapped his arms around Kurt, feeling his chest shake with laughter.
"Yeah, the water temperature here isn't that great," Sebastian choked out through giggles. He felt Kurt's lips against his neck, kissing him tenderly.
"Thank you for running to my rescue," Kurt whispered.
Sebastian ducked his head.
"You're welcome." Sebastian sighed. "You should get in there. It's not hot, but it'll stay warm for a while, at least."
Kurt looked into Sebastian's eyes, crinkled at the corners from laughing.
"Maybe you could keep me warm?" Kurt stepped backward into the shower, taking Sebastian's hands and pulling him gently until Sebastian relented and joined him.
Sebastian backed Kurt slowly against the tile wall, gazes locked, emerald to sapphire.
"Something tells me..." Sebastian said as he kissed along Kurt's jaw, "we might be in here for a while."
"I don't mind." Kurt smiled as Sebastian's arms circled him, his body shielding him from the lukewarm water. "We have about three hours to kill until you wanted to be at my house, and there's a lot we can do in that amount of time."
Sebastian smirked as he lifted his head to face Kurt.
"What did you have in mind, gorgeous?"
Kurt looked into Sebastian's face - his eyes wide and honest, his expression soft and full of love.
"Do you trust me?" Kurt whispered.
Sebastian kissed Kurt deeply, his lips moving slowly against Kurt's as he slid his tongue into his warm mouth, so soft and inviting. Sebastian could stand naked against Kurt and kiss him senseless, but he was a little too intrigued by what Kurt wanted.
"Of course," Sebastian said. "I trust you with everything I am."
Kurt kissed Sebastian on the forehead, chaste and sweet, before slipping out from under his arm and stepping behind him. Sebastian started to turn, to face Kurt, but Kurt stopped him with firm hands to his hips.
"Please?" Kurt asked quietly, "Stay like this?"
Kurt ran his hands over Sebastian's back and down his arms, resting for a moment over his hands, splayed out on the tile wall.
Sebastian nodded, head hung and eyes downcast, waiting for Kurt's next move.
The familiar click of a bottle being opened caught Sebastian's attention.
"You came prepared," Sebastian teased. Kurt chuckled.
"Well, I was kind of hoping you'd join me."
Kurt squeezed a dollop of lube into his palm.
"I told you before that I like to profile people," Kurt began. "I guess it's an occupational hazard. When you read the kind of books I do for a living, you have to get to know all sorts of characters. It's like a puzzle."
Sebastian watched Kurt put the bottle of lube down in the soap dish. He felt Kurt come up behind him.
"I have a feeling," Kurt continued, "that I know a few things about you that you didn't need to tell me. Like this..."
Sebastian felt a slick finger run up the length of his crack, and he tensed. His hands on the wall curled into fists.
"You don't let anyone do this to you, do you?"
"No," Sebastian said, his voice tight. "I don't."
Kurt, perceptive as always, had figured him out. He had never let anyone top him, never even let anyone finger him. He hated to admit, especially in front of Kurt, that wanting it made him feel like less of a man.
Submissive.
Weak.
Kurt's gentle finger found Sebastian's entrance and circled slowly.
Sebastian inhaled a quick breath through his teeth. His body battled with the thoughts and feelings whirling like a tornado within him. This idea of weakness didn't belong to Sebastian. It had been implanted in his head by his father. He had seen his dad take naive secretaries from behind, saw him bend them over his desk, saw their faces contort with pain and humiliation.
But wasn't this the same way he had taken Kurt, not a few hours before?
Hadn't it been beautiful?
His Kurt was not weak. Kurt - gorgeous, talented, incredible Kurt - would always be the strongest person he ever met.
Kurt gave everything he had to Sebastian.
Sebastian wanted to give back.
Sebastian swallowed hard, begging his tense muscles to relax.
"I can make you feel good like this," Kurt whispered. "Would you let me?"
Sebastian gritted his teeth.
He had thought about this before. He wanted this. He wanted Kurt to do this for him.
"Yes, Kurt," Sebastian said with a strained sigh. "Yes, I will."
Sebastian heard Kurt breathe in quickly, felt gentle kisses pepper his back. Kurt's soft lips slid across Sebastian's skin, licking at the drops of water that gathered there. His finger pressed a little further into Sebastian's hole, dipping in lightly, and then circling some more. Sebastian felt his muscles melt beneath Kurt's touch.
"Oh..." Sebastian moaned when Kurt started to press in further. Slowly Kurt entered Sebastian, his long finger working its way in inch by inch, back and forth, sliding smoothly, cautiously. Kurt ran a hand over Sebastian's spine, and he arched his back, craving the heat of Kurt's palm. Kurt shivered as he watched Sebastian's reaction to his touch - the flush of his skin, the slight quiver in his arms and legs, the way he leaned forward to rest his forehead against the cool tile.
"More, Kurt," Sebastian pleaded, his voice blissfully fragmented.
Kurt carefully added a second finger, circling around Sebastian's entrance slowly to soothe the sting before he pushed in slowly, watching the play of his muscles as his back twitched, listening for the change in his breathing that told Kurt to slow down or stop. Kurt felt Sebastian clench around him, watched his half-hard cock come to full attention. Kurt slid his fingers in and out, watching as Sebastian's body stretched to accommodate them, moaning when Sebastian bent slightly over, pushing his ass further out to give Kurt better access.
Taking control of Sebastian's pleasure became an aphrodisiac for Kurt. This strong man, his defined legs, his sculpted back, his athletic build...his complete surrender. Kurt pressed his body against Sebastian, letting him feel Kurt's arousal as he rutted against him, looking for friction and finding it on the smooth skin of Sebastian's hip.
"Oh, Kurt," Sebastian moaned, unable to help himself from bucking his hips, from moving back and forth over Kurt's fingers. Kurt turned his fingers inside Sebastian, searching him out, trying to find the spot that would take Sebastian's breath away. Kurt knew it when he found it, and the response he got when he slowly circled his finger over it almost made Kurt lose himself and cum.
Sebastian threw his head back, biting his lips, whining as he bucked back against Kurt's fingers.
"Oh, Kurt! Do that again!" Sebastian begged. Kurt circled the spot again, slowly feeling around it, setting its location to memory. Sebastian's body jolted, arching again at Kurt's touch. Sebastian looked so beautiful in that moment - the column of his neck stretched, his whole body lengthening, asking Kurt to reach that spot again. His wet hair hung in his face, his eyes squeezed shut, consumed by wanton abandon and shameless lust. Sebastian was the perfect image of strength and sex as he reached out an arm to grab Kurt's face to his, asserting his claim to his boyfriend's mouth.
"Oh, Kurt..." The words caught between their mouths as Sebastian refused to leave the caress of Kurt's lips, "I want more. I want you."
"Later, my love," Kurt cooed. "I want to see you cum just like this. It may be selfish of me, but I'm kind of enjoying the view."
Sebastian whimpered as Kurt swirled that spot more quickly, pulling away from Sebastian's lips so he could watch Sebastian writhe, watch his eyes roll to the back of his head as he tried to fuck himself on Kurt's fingers. Kurt wrapped an arm around Sebastian's waist and held him still, resting his ear against his back so he could hear Sebastian's heart race, his breath start to stagger, his breathy gasps and his tortured moans. He molded his body against Sebastian's so he could feel him tremble.
"Oh, Kurt." Sebastian practically sang his name as he inched closer and closer, letting his body go quiet so he could absorb the entirety of Kurt's control over him. There was no embarrassment or humiliation here in the comfort of Kurt's arms. Sebastian felt a tremendous sense of peace, a strange mixture of erotic seduction and pure, untarnished love that he could find no words to describe.
Kurt whispered soft endearments - I love you's and sweet promises, and at one point the words of a short poem in French.
Chaque jour je t'aime d'avantage
Au'jourd hui
plus que hier
et biens moins que demain
Kurt didn't know that Sebastian spoke fluid French, didn't know anything about his year abroad. Kurt simply spoke what was in his heart.
Each day I love you more
today more than yesterday
and much less than tomorrow.
It was the words of that poem that had Sebastian crying out, biting his lip and moaning, his head thrown back, shuddering with Kurt holding him against his body as he came.
Sebastian, overwhelmed by the strength of his orgasm, floating in the euphoria of Kurt's love for him, noticed Kurt's still painfully hard erection and finished him off on his knees, taking him in his mouth in one swift motion, sucking around him mercilessly, until Kurt came with a choked squeak down Sebastian's waiting throat.
The water had gone ice cold, but neither man noticed, panting against one another as Sebastian held Kurt the way he always did, cradled against him protectively, possessively.
"Thank you for that," Kurt whispered into his shoulder. "I love you, Sebastian, so much."
Sebastian looked down at his boyfriend, his warm smile turning into a mischievous smirk.
"Et moi aussi."
And me, as well.
"Soooo, what are we doing today?" Kurt asked, handing Sebastian a mug of coffee. Sebastian only had the one mug, and the two of them came to a compromise. Basically, they drank the coffee the way Kurt took his, and Sebastian shared it gratefully, smiling like he had just won the million dollar jackpot.
"Well..." Sebastian accepted the mug with a nod, and took a generous sip, "we need to freak proof your house a little better."
Kurt smirked as he watched Sebastian take another drink from the mug. Kurt's favorite past time had become watching Sebastian do pretty much anything. When he ate his food, he would close his eyes after almost every bite, chewing thoughtfully. When he read, his brow would knit in the middle while he concentrated, he would bite his lower lip, and tap the back cover with the index finger of his right hand. Now, as he drank his coffee, he inhaled deeply before every sip, moaning appreciatively as the warm liquid touched his lips.
"I already texted Justice," he continued, looking at Kurt with a strange twist to his lips when he noticed he was being carefully scrutinized. "You and Madeline are going to hit the mall for a few hours, get your retail therapy on, while Justice and I go back to the house and sort things out."
"Ok," Kurt said with a shrug, "I guess that makes sense." Kurt climbed off the bed. He grabbed his iPhone out of his jacket pocket. "Let me go ahead and call the security company. They've been bugging me for months about upgrading my system. I think I'll just skip straight to the presidential package. I think it comes with motion activated lasers or something."
Sebastian chuckled as he drained the rest of the coffee, getting up to pour another cup. Sebastian heard Kurt on his phone, talking with a customer service representative from ADT, ordering the upgrade. Sebastian leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Kurt. Kurt paced back and forth in the small living room while he talked, hand poised on his hip, staring down at his feet with a look of intense concentration. Sebastian had wrapped Kurt up in his red Harvard sweats, since the ice cold water had chilled Kurt straight to the bone. Sebastian looked at the fabric hanging off Kurt's thin body and grinned.
He loved those sweats on him. The 'dressed in my boyfriend's clothes' look really appealed to Sebastian. Kurt nodded a few times with a small sound of affirmation before saying good bye and hanging up the phone.
"All set," Kurt said, slipping the phone back into his jacket pocket.
Justice and Madeline picked Kurt and Sebastian up at the curb in front of Sebastian's apartment. Madeline leaned on the horn when the two men wouldn't stop making out long enough to acknowledge the presence of the town car idling, waiting for them. All four went to lunch together when they hit the mall. Over their meal, the two couples laughed and joked, avoiding the subject of the prior night's intruder, and what his presence in Kurt's life might mean.
Justice was the practical one who cut the meal short and ushered everyone out of the restaurant so he and Sebastian could get to work.
Sebastian opened the door for Kurt, taking him into his arms, not prepared to say good-bye. Kurt looped his arms around Sebastian's neck and kissed him passionately. From somewhere in the distance, where the world around them dissolved into ether at the touch of Kurt's lips to his, Sebastian heard Madeline's dreamy sigh.
"Kurt," Sebastian whispered as he gave his boyfriend one last squeeze, "I'm going to need your keys."
Kurt nodded as he reached in his pocket and pulled out his key ring. Kurt grabbed a silver and a gold key, threading them off the ring. Sebastian's hand stopped him.
"I need all the keys, Kurt," Sebastian clarified.
Kurt looked at Sebastian with sad eyes, fingers clutching the two keys, not ready to let go.
Sebastian cupped Kurt's face in his free hand, rubbing their noses together sweetly.
"I need you to trust me, gorgeous," he whispered against Kurt's lips, brushing them lightly.
Kurt held the keys for one more moment, feeling the last of his resistance bleed away as Sebastian kissed him. Kurt replaced the keys, pressing them into Sebastian's palm and closing his fingers around them.
"Come on, loverboys," Madeline drawled as she tugged Kurt away. "You guys have work to do, and the time for shopping is nigh."
Sebastian watched Kurt, a momentary look of sorrow passing through his eyes, shifting the cyan irises to gray, before he turned to his bubbly companion, and followed her into Bloomingdale's. Sebastian sat in the front passenger seat and buckled his seat belt, turning his head to see Justice regarding him with sympathetic eyes. Sebastian smiled, a little weakly, a little warily. Justice put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"We'll get this done, Bastian," the man reassured him. "We'll keep him safe."
Sebastian nodded, smiling wider as Justice turned the key in the ignition, starting the car and driving them away.
The more time Sebastian spent with Justice, the more he learned about this soft-spoken mountain of a man. On a journey to find himself after high school, Justice had become a jack-of-all-trades, jumping from job to job until he found his calling - MMA fighting. At one point, he had worked as a security guard for a medical lab that tested its vaccinations on animals. Eventually, he had to quit on principle, but during the year he worked there he learned quite a bit about dealing with hostiles. In Justice's case, 'hostiles' were students from a local college who made it their constant mission to try and free the animals the lab kept for experimental purposes.
When they arrived at the house, Justice went through a checklist with Sebastian of the things they would be looking for: rusted window locks, loose door hinges, areas along the perimeter where someone could hide. Justice checked along the outside, while Sebastian took the inside. When the technician from the security company showed up, Justice shadowed the poor man like a silent hunter watching his quarry, observing the man closely as he changed the locks on the doors, and added a few new dead bolts on the inside. He installed the new security panels, programming them with a default number and recommended they reprogram it as soon as possible with a new personalized code. When Justice took the technician outside to install the motion sensor lights, Sebastian, lips twisted into a sly smirk, changed the code to 'gorgeous' until Kurt could fix it.
Sebastian went over the inside of the house, deciding to start with the lower level first before moving upstairs to the four rooms above, and the attic. The lower level only had two doors - the front door that had already been dealt with, and another door in the dining room that led to the back yard. Sebastian could hear Justice right outside talking with the tech about provisions for the door. Sebastian opened it for them, leaving it slightly ajar. He listened as Justice bombarded the man with demands in a low, dangerous voice. Sebastian laughed quietly. He almost felt sorry for the guy.
Sebastian made his way to the attic, deciding to tackle that space first. He hoped that if any bats remained in residence, that they would stay quiet and keep their rabies to themselves. There wasn't much to the space. Kurt didn't keep anything in it. Sebastian figured that after the bat incident, Kurt probably relocated anything he stored up there, locked the door, and never looked back. Sebastian could only see one opening in the attic - a decorative piece with slats that would have vented to the outside if not for a large piece of industrial metal mesh that had been installed to deter any unwelcome critters from making the attic a home.
Sebastian looked the screening over, tugging at the edges to make sure it was affixed nice and tight to the wall. He noticed that even if a human being could slice through the mesh, there was no way they could fit through the slats, so this would probably not be an entry point for any possible intruders. Just to be on the safe side, he decided to have a few dead bolts installed on the outside of the door. He sent a quick text to Justice before leaving the attic and locking the door, turning the door knob and pushing on it to make sure the lock kept the door shut tight.
After the attic, Sebastian decided to start with a walk through the rooms he already knew.
Kurt's work space had the one window over his desk that looked out onto the garden and the front of the house. Sebastian smiled at the organized chaos of the room - the piles of envelopes divided by Kurt's secret special system of filing, the large wood desk that took up almost half of the wall, the bookcases standing one beside the other like sentries watching over Kurt while he sorted through manuscript after manuscript. The locks on the window seemed sound, but Justice had mentioned laminating all the windows to make them shatterproof. Sebastian heard the whirring of a drill outside. He peeked through the glass to try and get a glimpse of the men installing motion sensors outside and remembered that the view of the lower part of the house was obscured from the top level. Sebastian texted Justice, asking him if there was some sort of mirror they could install that would give them that view. He heard the drilling outside stop, and then a moment later got a text in response.
From: Justice
On it!
Sebastian shook his head with a smile. He was so thankful for the presence of this man in their lives. A loud noise sounded outside as Justice triggered the new alarms, testing to make sure the sensors worked.
Sebastian looked around the bedroom quickly. Just like the office, it only had the one window that looked out over the front of the house. This window, too, was locked. Sebastian took a peek through the closet, making certain that it had no access panels to the ceiling or floor, or any hidden ways someone could make their way into the house. Satisfied that no such access existed, he headed to the bathroom.
The single window in the bathroom was nothing more than a narrow slat with a pane of glass that pivoted in place. No animal larger than a mouse would be able to make its way inside. Sebastian tried to fit his arm through the space with no success.
The only remaining room was the one Sebastian affectionately referred to as The Tomb of Anubis...but only in his own head. Kurt said it was where he locked away old ghosts so he didn't have to deal with them. Sebastian wasn't sure what he would find in this room - answers to some of the questions he felt he didn't have the right to ask...or would it just lead to more questions?
Sebastian decided not to make it a big deal. He wasn't here to invade Kurt's privacy. He was here to make sure Kurt was safe. Sebastian walked to the door with purpose, unlocking it without any kind of ceremony. He decided to approach whatever waited inside the room with a detached demeanor.
He failed.
He opened the door and stopped short. He couldn't see an inch in front of his face. He stared at an expanse of inky black darkness that he could feel had depth, he just couldn't see it. Sebastian reached around on both walls in search of a light switch. His fingers came in contact with a small switch. He flipped it up. The only light source in the room, a single ceiling-mounted bonnet which housed a 60 watt bulb, bathed the room in a soft light, leaving much of the space in shadow.
Originally the master bedroom, this room was bigger than the other two combined. The room had only a few sparse pieces of furniture in it - an antique white vanity with a broken circular mirror, gilded at the edges in gold; a large, rectangular drawing table, like the kind engineers or designers used; a sewing table with a vintage sewing machine seated on it; and a free standing wooden wardrobe, standing on six intricately carved claw feet and almost as large as Kurt's closet. All around were stacks of unopened boxes piled neatly along the perimeter of the room, all sealed shut with numerous layers of packing tape. Some of the boxes were covered with dust. Sebastian assumed those boxes had come from the attic. Only a few of the boxes were marked. Some had single words written on them like 'designs', 'sketches', or 'fabric'. Two large boxes were marked 'CDs', and Sebastian realized that for as much as Kurt talked about music and singing, he had never heard Kurt play any music in the house. He didn't own a sound system or an MP3 player. He didn't stream music from his computer. Madeline didn't even play music in the car when they drove.
The rest of the boxes were either bare or had dates written on them instead of words. Doing some quick math in his head, Sebastian realized a few of these were from Kurt's senior year in high school, and one from his freshman year in college. Sebastian made his way to the closet in this room and opened it, searching for access panels in there as well, but this closet was filled to bursting from end to end with heavy boxes stacked all the way to the ceiling with only a narrow space left.
Sebastian walked to the far wall. The room had two windows with a view of the backyard, but these windows had been glued shut with some sort of heavy duty contractor's adhesive and covered over with thick, stiff pieces of black paper.
These were Kurt's ghosts - the last remnants of his past, packed into boxes and stacked away in the dark. Sebastian couldn't help but feel that what was left of Kurt's happiness was stored somewhere in here; all of the dreams that he had been forced to give up, all the hopes that had been ripped away. It made Sebastian angry to see it. He knew Kurt was better than the life he was living. Sebastian didn't even need to open a single box to know it. Kurt was brilliant and talented and worth so much more than the lot that had been thrust upon him. All of the stacks, all the boxes...this was where Kurt's dreams had been buried.
The room looked secure, so Sebastian made his way for the door. He had to leave. He couldn't stand to be in there. It was like standing in the middle of a graveyard. The boxes pressed in around him. He forced himself not to touch a single thing as he walked through the columns. Near the door, obscured by a stack of boxes he couldn't see around from the other side, were two boxes stacked one on top of the other. Both boxes were covered in metered postage. The box on the floor was hastily marked 'Finn's stuff'. The one on top was open.
Sebastian didn't want to look in it, but a framed photograph caught his attention. It was the same photo from Kurt's phone - the thumbnail of him with his first love, presumably at Prom. The thumbnail had only been of their upper bodies, faces beaming with smiles, arms wrapped around each other. In this photo, Sebastian could see the whole of them. Sebastian smiled, chuckling a bit when he noticed that Kurt was wearing a half kilt. The boy beside him, Sebastian had to admit, looked kind of hot. Sebastian wondered how long ago Kurt had changed that thumbnail on his phone.
Sebastian saw piles of photographs in the box - mostly of Kurt from high school, face lit up with that beautiful inner glow that Sebastian had only recently begun to see. He saw photos of Kurt with an older man, shorter than Kurt, wearing a flannel shirt and a baseball cap in nearly every photo. Sebastian assumed that this tired but happy looking man with the similar smile was Kurt's father. He flipped the photo over to see if there was anything written on the back, but no luck. A few group photos taken at school came next - Kurt with his arm around the shoulders of a feisty looking African American girl, and wrapped under his other arm, a girl with long, brown hair wearing a reindeer sweater. Sebastian shook his head, flipping through the photos of a sweet, shy looking young man, same chestnut colored hair, same amazing fashion sense, but with a different sadness in his iridescent blue eyes. Sebastian stopped at a series of photos of a teenage Kurt dressed in a criminally tight red and white cheerleading uniform. Salivating and feeling slightly perverted, he imagined what it would have been like meeting Kurt in high school.
Sebastian sighed.
He would have wrecked this poor boy.
Sebastian stacked the photos neatly, trying his best to keep them in the same order he had found them. He lifted the framed photograph to replace the small pile beneath it. Another photo, stuck to the back of the frame, broke free and fluttered to the floor. Sebastian replaced the pile of photos and the frame. He bent down to pick up the photograph. Standing, he flipped the photo over, and became immediately sick. Kurt, slouched slightly, his face a pale mask, his eyes dull, stared into the lens of the camera, looking like he might be sick himself. A thick arm wrapped around Kurt's narrow shoulders, and attached to that arm, the body of a behemoth, holding Kurt close, possessively. The man wore jeans and an ill-fitting polo shirt. He was at least twice Kurt's size if not more. But the face in the photograph had been scratched out violently with a ballpoint pen.
Sebastian felt his arm go numb.
This had to be him. This had to be the man.
Sebastian folded the photo carefully and shoved it into his pocket, his whole body prickling. Sebastian turned off the light, watching as the room and all its contents disappeared into darkness before shutting and locking the door.
Sebastian's whole body felt heavy as he walked back down the stairs, trudging down each step one at a time with the weight of the photograph in his pocket, his only clue to the identity of Kurt's abusive ex scratched out.
Sebastian checked the time on his phone. It was almost four o'clock. So many hours without his gorgeous boyfriend on a Saturday. This did not sit well with him. To make matters worse, Sebastian noticed he had missed seven messages from Kurt. Several were picture messages - one of Kurt and Madeline trying on hats and sunglasses, making silly faces for the camera; one of Kurt posing in a new pair of green skinny jeans; and the last one - Sebastian's favorite by far - of Kurt blowing him a kiss into the camera. The message attached to the photo said simply 'I love you'.
"I love you, too," Sebastian said, lightly pecking Kurt's image on the screen.
Sebastian heard the men outside, and from what he could make of their conversation, it sounded like they were wrapping things up.
He scanned the living room one last time. He looked at the framed pictures on the walls, the various pieces of furniture, the piano in the corner with its tiny stool. He smiled.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
His eyes fell on his book, lying on the sofa...Island of Fear. Sebastian didn't know why, but something about the paperback novel, sitting on the couch cushion, bothered him. He walked over to the sofa and picked up the book. It didn't look any different than it did when he had dropped it on the floor yesterday.
Sebastian felt the hairs on the back of his neck start to prickle, rising one by one to stand on end.
He had dropped it on the floor when he had gone down on Kurt. Who moved it back to the couch?
Sebastian tried to think, tried to recall the events from the previous evening. Sebastian had carried Kurt upstairs, and didn't come back down until the intruder tried to break in. It was conceivable with all the hustle and bustle of the police showing up that evening that he or Kurt had picked up the book, but why?
The more Sebastian thought it over, the more he became convinced.
Heavy, shuffling footsteps caught Sebastian's attention, breaking him from his train of thought. Sebastian gripped the book in his hands, squeezing around it like a vice. The footsteps stopped at the front door. He turned quickly with the book still in his hands to see Justice signing some paperwork on a clipboard. He handed the clipboard over to the technician, who waved good-bye to both men, looking eager to get away from the larger, intimidating man. Justice took one look at Sebastian and knew something was wrong.
"What's up, Bastian?" the massive man asked.
"I think someone was in here," Sebastian said, holding up the book. "After we left last night, I think someone broke in."
Sebastian tried to think. Did they lock both door locks? Close all the windows? Did they set the alarm before they left? Sebastian had punched in the special pass code to disarm the system when he and Justice had arrived that afternoon, but he couldn't for the life of him remember if he heard the little beep that meant the system had shut down. What if it was already turned off and he didn't realize it?
"What do you want to do?" Justice asked. "Call the police?"
Sebastian shook his head.
"What am I going to tell them? I think someone broke in because I can't remember for sure whether or not I left this book on the couch after I ate out my boyfriend?"
He tossed the book on the sofa. Getting a sudden idea, he looked under the sofa again. Kurt's computer and Sebastian's digital camera were both there.
Sebastian wanted to feel relieved, but he couldn't.
If someone broke in after they left, why not take two expensive electronics sitting not a foot from where this cruddy ass book lay?
Someone whose purpose for breaking in wasn't to steal anything.
Someone who wanted to freak them out...or send them a message.
Sebastian's whole body froze over. He would need to find this asshole, and fast.
He knew Kurt didn't want Sebastian to find him.
Sebastian had the feeling, whether Kurt wanted it or not, that he would be meeting the man, and soon.
"Justice?" Sebastian looked at the wrestler standing just in the door way. "Do you think you and Madeline would like to stay the weekend?"
Justice's eyes went wide, and a strange smile curled his lips.
"I think we would love it," Justice answered with an understanding nod.
"Great," Sebastian looked down at the book - such an innocent, innocuous little thing that now made his blood run cold. His eyes burned over it. Sebastian chewed on the inside of his cheek as he came to a decision. "I need your help with something else, too, if you don't mind."
"What's that?" Justice asked.
Sebastian looked around the room, sweeping his eyes up and around at this quaint little living space that had now turned into a fortress he would need to find a way to protect.
"I'm going to be moving out of my apartment today."