Kurt felt trapped in a surreal lucid dream. Between imprisonment by Chandler, pretending to break up with Sebastian, witnessing Sebastian being tortured, killing a man, getting arrested, and then set free, his personality had divided somewhere along the way. He didn't know how to feel. Which emotion should he surrender to? Could he just shove the pain and the hurt and the trauma behind him and start focusing on his new life? That's what he wanted to do, but it seemed so callous, so inhuman in a way. No one would fault him if he did. The people in his life who truly mattered would forgive him for forgetting it all and putting in behind him.
In his head, he felt that he owed it to the human race to care more about it, to suffer over it, build an altar to it and linger there for a while.
Another part of him felt completely heartless – done with people, society, and the world in general. Evil existed on the planet; not just in movies and books, but real evil. It had shown up on his doorstep. It had threatened to take everything away from him. To top it off, a man whose job it was to protect him, to shield him from danger, wanted to put him behind bars, simply for whom he was.
It was sometime during dinner when it all hit him. Eating his Cesar salad, he watched as people came and went, interacted, kissed over drinks, shared their meals, shared their lives. Children colored menus and babies cried, and he felt immune to all of it. He tried to smile when a baby laughed, and he couldn't. He tried to feel sympathetic when a little girl fell on her way to her table, but he couldn't find it in him to care. He saw a man and woman twine their arms together and drink out of champagne glasses, something that always made his heart flutter a little for the romance of it, and it didn't affect him at all.
He had sworn he wouldn't let this ordeal turn him into an emotionless non-human. What had changed?
He should be shouting from the rooftops. He broke away from all his prisons. He had Sebastian in his arms and a life with him to look forward to. He was finally free.
So why did he feel himself shutting down?
Pieces of him had scattered along the way and gone missing. Some of them had been pulled away forcefully. Some had dripped away slowly. The lieutenant's words took a piece; having to relive his pain and expose himself in front of so many people had yanked free another. Chandler had stolen a handful of pieces. Kurt still didn't know how he would live with the knowledge that Chandler had killed at least twelve people in his efforts to get to him – twelve people dead because of Kurt.
Kurt had torn out a few himself. Killing someone – even an evil someone – was too fresh for Kurt to just ignore.
The he had to take into account the pieces that had been gone for a while.
Blaine had a piece.
Dave had taken more pieces than anyone should be allowed to have of another person.
Adam had a piece, even though Kurt didn't know until recently where that one went.
Not seeing his father for three years had dissolved a piece.
Missing Finn's funeral had robbed Kurt of an irretrievable piece. That hole would never heal.
Now, ironically, for some morbid, self-defeating reason, he had started pushing Sebastian away. Until he let him back in, that was another piece gone. A gigantic one.
Kurt's psyche had become skeletal – full of too many spaces and not enough skin.
He tried over the days to collect as many pieces as he had left and put them back together but he couldn't. Whatever progress he made during the day, the nightmares tore it all apart. Sebastian couldn't defeat the nightmares this time. Sebastian was now too big a part of them.
Kurt feared that Sebastian actually blamed him on some level for everything that had happened. More to the point, Kurt couldn't imagine how Sebastian could not. Sebastian had spent the last few months hiding away with him from the outside world. Because of Kurt, Sebastian only really had two other friends. He had turned Sebastian into just as much of a recluse, a homebody as he was. And then Chandler…
Kurt thought for sure Sebastian would have enough of him at some point and just leave.
That thought kept him awake on the afternoon Sebastian had snuck out of bed to call his brother.
"This is it," he thought. If Sebastian was going to spill the truth to anyone, it would be Richard.
But Sebastian didn't blame Kurt at all. Not a single bit.
Kurt listened to Sebastian recount the whole horrifying experience in vivid detail. Kurt almost broke at the sound of unshed tears in Sebastian's voice.
"God fucking shit, Richard," Sebastian said. "…yeah, well, I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm scared, dickweed. Anyways…but Kurt…you should have seen him, Ricky…he was fearless. He saved my life. I wouldn't be here if not for him…"
Kurt wanted so much to admit the truth to him then and there; to tell him he wasn't brave at all. He was a coward. He had to save Sebastian because he was too afraid to face the rest of his life alone.
But Kurt was huddled too deep into the cave he had created for himself, he couldn't have leapt out of the bed to hug Sebastian if he had tried, and that terrified him. If he removed himself from the world for too long, how would he ever find his way back?
Keeping still, keeping quiet had forced Sebastian to become his sole connection to the outside world, which still lived and breathed and moved without his participation in it. Sebastian fed him, bathed him, and kept him safe in his embrace. They spent long days together in bed while things like responsibility, jobs, and society ceased to exist. Kurt hoped that maybe time would stop for them all together, and they could exist in a place where intolerance, hate, and homophobia wouldn't affect them. They could be selfish and care only about each other.
As Kurt listened to Sebastian's almost endless storytelling, he realized with a pang of guilt that he wasn't doing his share.
Sebastian took care of Kurt. Kurt had yet to return the favor.
He didn't know how.
One night he discovered the answer. Like so many things in his relationship with Sebastian, it didn't hit him over the head or fall out of the blue. This crept up on him slowly, in whispers, in words, with kisses and touches, and silent, heart-felt pleas.
"Richard was born a few months after I turned four, and I couldn't stand it," Sebastian confessed, talking softly into Kurt's hair. "I had been so used to having my mom to myself. She took me everywhere. We were travel buddies. I thought that it would just be her and me against the world forever, and then all of a sudden there was the squishy human taking my place. I was so livid."
Sebastian placed a kiss into Kurt's hair; a habit he had developed when pausing to reconcile a particularly difficult memory.
"I never hurt him, but I used to hide him in places – laundry baskets, behind trash cans in the kitchen, with my toys. My mother always tried to convince me that someday we would be the best of friends and that we would need each other. We became friends, of course, obviously, but I don't think I ever believed that I would need him. But I guess she was right, huh? "
Kurt wanted to turn around and loop his arms around Sebastian's neck, but he couldn't make himself do it.
Sebastian sighed.
"Kurt," Sebastian whispered, planting kisses across Kurt's shoulder. "Kurt, we won. We beat the bad guy. You saved the day. And I know this is hard…and I know that you're scared, but I feel like I'm losing you, gorgeous."
Sebastian sniffled, fighting back a single tear that would open the gateway to a whole flood if he allowed it to fall.
"Now…" Sebastian steadied his voice as he continued. "I want to get our life started, baby…whatever that takes. Counseling, therapy, experimental medications, mud soaks on obscure mountaintops in Turkey…"
Without meaning to let it happen, a small smile split Kurt's lips. He continued to listen.
"I'll take you anywhere you want to go, Kurt. We'll do whatever you want to do. Write me up a list, and we'll do everything on it. I have a list, too, you know, but it mostly includes public places I intend on having sex with you, so I'm sure the two will meld quite nicely…"
Kurt bit his lower lip hard to stifle a laugh, but Sebastian felt it; the almost imperceptible shake of Kurt's body as it wanted to break into a fit of giggles.
Sebastian smiled, trying to imagine what he could say that would break Kurt further out of his funk.
"…but if you want to spend the rest of our lives here in this bed, I'll do that, too. I don't think it's lived up to its full potential yet…"
Sebastian bounced the bed a few times with Kurt in his arms. That almost did it, but Kurt caught himself and swallowed his laugh quickly.
"Also," Sebastian whispered, leaning into Kurt's ear and licking suggestively over the delicate shell, "when you nap, I watch a lot of porn…and I mean a lot of porn. And I have a few ideas that I wanted to try out on you…" His hands roamed over Kurt's body in a playfully salacious manner, tracing his collarbone, tweaking his nipples, and grabbing hold of his cock until Kurt yelped, not able to contain his laughter anymore.
Kurt turned in Sebastian's arms.
Sebastian's smile turned sweet and bashful as he looked into his boyfriend's crystal blue eyes.
"Oh," Sebastian said, "there you are."
"Yeah," Kurt said. "I'm so sor-"
Sebastian captured his apology with a kiss, covering Kurt's mouth with his own for the first time in over a week, savoring the look of shock in Kurt's bright eyes before his eyelids fluttered shut and he melted against Sebastian's body.
"No apologies," Sebastian admonished gently. "Not a single one, do you understand?"
"But…"
Another kiss silenced Kurt quite effectively.
"You're my hero, Kurt," Sebastian whispered against Kurt's lips. "You saved my life. A few days of being catatonic doesn't erase any of that."
"But…you saved my life, too," Kurt argued. "If you hadn't come back…if you didn't break down the door…"
Sebastian placed a few gentle fingers to Kurt's lips to quiet him.
"I'm not just talking about…that," Sebastian said delicately, not wanting to drum up a single memory of their capture by Chandler. "I'm talking about the last few months…every day that I've known you."
Sebastian rolled onto his back, rolling Kurt on top of him. Sebastian moaned softly beneath Kurt's weight laying over him.
"I fucking love you, Kurt," Sebastian said finally, pulling Kurt down with a hand to the nape of his neck into a searing kiss, this one full of want and need, a desire to take Kurt, body and heart and soul to make them whole again.
Kurt pulled away slowly, giving himself enough distance to look into Sebastian's unblemished emerald eyes and smiled.
"I fucking love you, too." Kurt chuckled at the sound of the sentence as it passed between his lips.
Kurt didn't make a conscious decision. His body simply began to move above Sebastian's. He slid against him more by instinct than intention, just returning to a natural order of things, a way back to their life, side-stepping the large obstacle of the past week and leaving it far behind. Kurt leaned over Sebastian's body and pressed against him, craving the feeling of Sebastian's skin against his. He smiled when Sebastian moaned, long and low, a sound of such intense satisfaction that Kurt knew it had bought him at least three years out of purgatory.
"There's my gorgeous boyfriend," Sebastian murmured. He bent his legs up at the knees to cage Kurt in. Placing a gentle kiss to Kurt's forehead, he took over. He positioned a hand at Kurt's lower back to hold him and rutted against him, rolling his hips up to meet Kurt's as Kurt relaxed into the smooth movements of Sebastian's body. It seemed like an eternity since Sebastian last felt Kurt tremble in his arms – a situation Sebastian swore to rectify today a thousand times over. After such a long hiatus of not having each other, it didn't take much to make Kurt fall apart on top of him, but Sebastian tried his hardest to make this moment of ecstasy last as long as he could. But Kurt's small breathy moans were too delicious, and the way he moved to meet Sebastian's thrusts, charmingly tentative with just a little touch of heat, as if he were rediscovering Sebastian's body all over again, completely did him in.
Sebastian felt like a fumbling teenaged boy, cumming so quickly, but his pride recovered a bit when Kurt quickly followed, stilling in Sebastian's arms, letting Sebastian have him just the way that he wanted him – shuddering and gasping, trapped in his arms, a little tortured as Sebastian continued to move against him, even after he whimpered from the oversensitivity of his cock.
"God I missed this," Sebastian growled, biting Kurt's neck possessively. "I missed having you like this, hot and naked, your body all over me..."
Sebastian couldn't help himself, grabbing Kurt roughly, sucking over sensitive skin until marks bloomed on his pale chest. He wanted another go at Kurt, and Kurt didn't push him away. He needed Sebastian, too, more now than he ever remembered. But he also knew they needed to talk. They had to plan for a life that existed outside their hotel room.
"What do you want to do?" Kurt said, barely whispering as Sebastian bathed Kurt's nipple with long, drawn out licks from his tongue.
"Well, I was kind of hoping we could do that again," Sebastian said, flipping Kurt onto his back and hovering over him, not pinning him to the mattress, but not letting him up either.
"No," Kurt chuckled, his eyes rolling to the back of his head as Sebastian began blazing a trail down Kurt's body, straight for his cock, which fought against exhaustion to become hard again. "No, I meant, what do you want to do…"
"I don't care, Kurt," Sebastian said between kisses along Kurt's abs ending in licks down the inside of his thighs. "I don't care what we do or where we go as long as I'm with you."
Kurt giggled when Sebastian traced circles along the tickling skin behind his knees.
"Well, I've kind of been giving this some thoughtooh…"
Kurt closed his eyes to absorb the sensation of Sebastian's hot, silky tongue licking thick stripes from the base of his cock to the head.
"What thoughts, angel?" Sebastian asked innocently between licks.
"We should…" Kurt stopped speaking entirely when Sebastian took him slowly into his mouth. Every plan, every bright idea flew straight from his head, and all that existed was Sebastian's perfect mouth and his talented tongue, straightening the kinks, erasing the pain, filling the gaps.
It devastated Kurt when Sebastian suddenly stopped.
"You were saying, gorgeous," Sebastian asked, pulling away briefly to fix Kurt with a questioning look.
"Um…we're going to have way more sex..."
Sebastian's mouth was back on him, and Kurt closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.
"We're going to shower..."
Sebastian hummed.
"Sounds good," Sebastian said, teasing the head of Kurt's cock with tiny licks and shallow sucks. "But what about after that?"
Sebastian let his hands roam around Kurt's hips, finding his ass and squeezing fondly. He pulled Kurt's hips closer, taking him down his throat to the hilt. Kurt keened loudly, arching his back as Sebastian swallowed around him.
"Nngh," Kurt groaned, savoring the feel of Sebastian's tongue as it wrapped around him. "Then we're going to sell my house and everything fucking in it."
Sebastian loved it when Kurt cursed, and rewarded him with a playful spank. Kurt bit his lip.
"I have 180 days of unused vacation time, and a bank account I barely touch. I can work anywhere, so let's just go...you and me..."
"Where should we go?" Sebastian asked, opting to talk around Kurt's cock instead of pulling off entirely. Kurt giggled as the vibrations made their way up his shaft and sent a strange, erotic sensation shoot all over his body.
"Nngh…I don't care. But, wherever we go, we'll take the long way," Kurt continued. Sebastian grabbed Kurt's hands and held them gently, loosely at the wrists, just enough to keep him immobile.
"The long way?"
"You know…" Kurt started to move his hips, fucking into Sebastian's glorious mouth. "Across America, and then abroad…Paris…London…China..."
Sebastian sighed, elated at the prospect of exploring the world with Kurt.
Kurt squeezed his eyes tight as he felt himself get close.
"Oh, God, Sebastian," Kurt moaned into the air, "won't you let me fuck you?"
Sebastian climbed up his body quickly, kissing his lips, sliding against him, molding himself to Kurt's body, loving the feeling of completeness that came with every inch of flesh pressed against him.
"Make love to me instead?" Sebastian pleaded gently.
Kurt's eyes glowed with love when he opened them again.
Kurt smiled.
"I think I can do that," Kurt said.
Kurt gave Sebastian full reign to manage selling his house. He wanted no part in any of it. Sebastian would handle getting it prepared and finding a realtor. All Kurt had to do was go through and label the things he wanted packed up, but that wouldn't happen until the remains of his old house were completely wiped away and the domicile became a neutral place, indistinguishable from any other suburban dwelling.
Sebastian called Lydia to make sure that Kurt's house was no longer a crime scene. As soon as he got the go ahead from Lydia, he hit the ground running. He hired a crime scene clean-up crew to completely eliminate any traces of blood on the floor, the walls, or the furniture. Once they did their job, Justice helped Sebastian hire carpenters, painters, landscapers, everybody and anybody who could help transform the little yellow prison into something fresh and new – to give it a new life.
The iron fence came down, replaced by a more decorative retaining wall. The outside stucco was repainted a pale blue with slight grey undertones. Sebastian had the vintage door, cracked and broken, strong grains reduced to nothing but splinters, replaced with a new, fabricated door – white, plain, and otherwise featureless, with absolutely no history - nothing special about it whatsoever. Windows were replaced and shutters installed. Landscapers leveled the soil in the garden and planted ornamental flowers and low-growing shrubs, keeping to indigenous floral species and using nothing invasive. Decorative mulch was layered over bare ground. It looked clean and neat, and very cookie cutter, Sebastian had to admit – a far cry from the eclectic collection of flowers and vegetables Kurt had grown and tended so lovingly. Whatever seeds from Kurt's original crop of endangered vegetables could be salvaged had been collected early on by a grateful group of ladies from a local horticultural society, who promised Sebastian that they would all end up in good hands.
Madeline often occupied Kurt with long lunches at some of his favorite spots and shopping trips to the mall. Sebastian thought it best that they spend as much time together as possible since he had no idea when they would see Madeline and Justice again. Once Sebastian had informed their friends of their plans to pack up and leave, Madeline and Just had revealed a similar scheme – to follow through on their dream of returning to the little village where Justice was born and raised, and try to start a life there.
Days of work went into fixing and repairing the house. While workers redid the outside, Sebastian and Justice worked inside, packing up Kurt's clothes, toiletries from the bathroom, and his piles of work from his office and brought them back to the hotel. Sebastian did most of the running back and forth with Kurt's things, enjoying the feeling of being reacquainted with his beloved Porsche. Kurt had yet to take a ride, and Sebastian was salivating with the prospects of getting his sexy boyfriend into the seat of his hot car.
Most of Kurt's furniture had already been sold on Craigslist or taken to the Salvation Army. Sebastian figured that having a small yard sale would help get rid of the odds and ends and earn Kurt a few bucks to boot. Only knick-knacks, small appliances, and the contents of Kurt's Tomb of Anubis remained.
It was time for Kurt to return home one last time.
"I'm nervous," Kurt rambled while he fumbled with his shoelaces. "I am genuinely nervous. Why am I so nervous? This is ridiculous. It's just a house, right? I used to live there. I should be okay going back to it. I mean, you said it looks completely different now, right? And this is necessary. I…"
Sebastian backed Kurt up against the wall and kissed him, soft but commanding, leading the way when Kurt might otherwise falter.
"It's just a house," Sebastian whispered. "We're not going to be there long…" Sebastian pressed gentle lips to Kurt's skin. "Just long enough to pack up some things…sell some crap…take a few pictures for the realtor…and then we're gone…"
"Gone for good?" Kurt said as Sebastian lips lingered, preparing for another kiss.
"Gone for good, gorgeous." Sebastian's kisses were a heaven Kurt didn't want to be far from. Lingering in the heat of Sebastian's mouth was more than good enough reason for Kurt to leave everything he once loved behind. But returning to the house was a necessary evil.
On some level Kurt realized it would give him closure.
He had to say good-bye.
"Now, get your sweet ass into my car …"
Kiss on the lips.
"…so we can get this over with…"
Kiss below the ear.
"…get back here…"
Kiss on the neck.
"…and fuck for the rest of the afternoon."
Sebastian ran his tongue down Kurt's neck to his shoulder, rubbing lightly over Kurt's nipples with his fingertips through his Ralph Lauren t-shirt. Kurt sighed. It sounded too good to turn down.
Besides, he had been dying since day one to sit inside Sebastian's Porsche.
Sebastian wanted to take full advantage of the drive over to Kurt's house. He wanted to have one hand on the steering wheel, and one hand down Kurt's tight as ever skinny jeans, stroking over his hard cock, relieving him of all of his worries and his tension, but he didn't. He knew his friends would be waiting for them to arrive and held with this final step, and he didn't want Kurt to feel self-conscious or uncomfortable. Still, he couldn't help resting a hand on Kurt's knee, feeling him vibrate in the seat of the car as they rolled along, engine purring as it shifted, cornering as if on rails, propelling them along. People stopped and stared as they drove through the tiny neighborhood, narrowing their eyes and peering through the windows, trying to recognize who might be sitting behind the lightly tinted windows.
"This car is incredible!" Kurt panted when Sebastian pulled up to the curb and killed the engine.
"Imagine what it's going to be like driving cross country in this baby," Sebastian smirked, giving in to temptation and pulling Kurt in for a hungry, long-overdue kiss.
Kissing Kurt in his car was something he could now mark off his bucket list.
Rapid fire knocking on the passenger's side window interrupted their impromptu make-out session.
"Come on, come on, come on!" Madeline's muffled voice beckoned at them through the window. "Kurt! You have to come out here and see!"
Kurt turned and got an eyeful of Madeline's ample cleavage from where she stood beside the car on the curb.
"Aah!" Kurt screamed in mock terror. "God, no! I think I've seen enough!"
"Pfft!" Madeline yanked the door open, and pulled Kurt out of the car hard enough to dislocate his shoulder.
"Ouch, woman!" he wailed. "What the hell's your…hurry…"
Kurt's words fell abruptly as he laid eyes on what used to be his house. Except for the shape of the house, and the layout of the property, Kurt could barely recognize it as having been his. Even though the house had been painted a slightly darker color, it seemed brighter, more cheerful somehow. Innocent and new – that's how he thought it felt. No large black fence keeping it hidden. No thick wooden door obscuring its beauty. Nothing dark and complicated tainted it. It finally looked like the thing it could never be for Kurt.
It looked like a home.
"Who…" Kurt wasn't even sure what he was asking, but Madeline answered him anyway.
"Sebastian did it," she replied. "All of it. He picked all the colors, hired everyone to fix it up. It was all his idea."
Sebastian took Kurt's hand and kissed it, rubbing the soft skin of Kurt's hand against his cheek.
"Would you like to look inside?" Sebastian offered. Kurt's hand immediately tightened around his in response.
"It's okay, gorgeous," Sebastian said with another kiss. "It's almost completely empty in there. Everything that's left is gathered in the living room waiting for you to go through it. I promise. It's just a house…remember?"
"Yeah, that's what we said last time," Kurt joked, still unable to ease his grip on Sebastian's hand. Sebastian moved to stand in front of him, catching his gaze with soothing emerald eyes.
"But this time, I'm not going to leave you," Sebastian promised. "Not for a second. Not unless you want me to. I'm here. We're all right here." Sebastian took a moment to glance around at Justice and Madeline, busy setting up folding card tables and making signs for the yard sale.
Kurt nodded, a small, crooked half grin twisting his mouth.
"Okay," he whispered. "Let's go inside."
Sebastian tucked Kurt's hand into the crook of his elbow and led him past the retaining wall to the new white door of the house. Sebastian turned the antique brass Georgian knob and pushed. The door swung open slowly. Kurt closed his eyes as he walked inside, not yet prepared to see his house again. When he heard Sebastian close the door behind him, he opened his eyes, one at a time.
What he saw before him was surprisingly unfamiliar. It didn't look anything like his house. It didn't even look the way it had when he originally bought it. The floor shined like a mirror, as did the wooden banister, and all the walls he could see were painted white. No frames hung from the walls, no photos or pictures or carefully calligraphied words. He saw the remaining contents of the upstairs rooms gathered in the center of the floor, but not the stand alone wardrobe. The clothes that hung inside were stacked into a neat pile on top of some boxes, and the wardrobe sold with the rest of the furniture days ago.
Kurt made his way to the staircase and walked up, almost afraid to touch the polished wood and leave fingerprints. He stepped into the hallway. All of the doors hung open a crack, light pouring in from open windows. More white walls, more carefully polished wood, everything fresh and sterile…just like he wanted.
This house would morph into someone else's new start.
Not his, but someone else.
He walked down the hallway, peeking into each room, taking in the empty space, letting the void wash through him. He didn't live here anymore. These walls wouldn't contain him any longer.
In fact, where he planned on going, there would be no walls.
Traveling the world and wide open spaces.
No iron fences. No elaborate alarm systems.
No fear of the dark.
Just his manuscript and his laptop with Sebastian and his camera.
Sebastian found Kurt in the vacant room where his ghosts had hidden, locked up for so long. He looked out the window at the newly landscaped back yard. Sebastian couldn't tell if Kurt was laughing or crying.
"Kurt?" Sebastian called softly to the man leaning his forehead against the window. "Are you okay?"
"Okay?" Kurt breathed, his voice thick with happy tears. "I'm better than okay."
Kurt turned to Sebastian.
"I'm fantastic!"
Sebastian met Kurt halfway, lifting him up in his arms and spinning him around in dizzying circles around the slick floor of the spiritless room.
"So, should we violate this room one time before we sell the fucker?" Sebastian asked, gnawing gentle on Kurt's exposed neck.
"It's tempting," Kurt answered honestly, eyes sweeping the large exposed room, "but no. Let's just get this over with and get out of here."
Madeline wore the shortest possible denim shorts and tightest white V-neck t-shirt Kurt had ever seen on a human being, which is probably how she managed to lure most of the neighborhood and half the town down to Kurt's house for the yard sale. The front yard had become a constant hub of activity. Some people came to shop the last of Kurt's collectibles, some came simply to socialize with the neighbor they barely got to know. Even before the last tchotchke had walked away in the hands of some odd, overweight man wearing sweatpants and a too tight "Frankie Says Relax" retro t-shirt, Kurt was a blubbering mess. He had hugged more people than he had ever known in his life, and had received three cakes, a Jell-O mold, and about four dozen chocolate chip cookies.
Everyone seemed sad to see their reclusive neighbor leave.
"What are you going to do with the stuff you want to keep?" Madeline asked, reaching into her pocket for the umpteenth time to hand Kurt a tissue.
"I don't know," Kurt shrugged. "I guess I could rent a storage space to keep it all in until we figure out what we want to do and where we want to go."
Kurt felt someone watching him and turned to see Sebastian, a strange, unreadable expression on his face. Sebastian flashed Kurt a sly, crooked smile, then turned and walked back into the house.
An hour later, the hubbub died down. The steady stream of neighbors turned into a slow trickle, until eventually no one stopped by at all. Kurt packed the desserts into the car and helped fold up the tables. Bewildered that his boyfriend had yet to make an appearance, Kurt walked through the house in search of him. He heard his voice in the backyard, and followed it out the usually locked back door.
"Yes, sir…"
Kurt stopped in his tracks.
He had never heard Sebastian call anyone 'sir' and wondered for a moment if he might actually be on the phone with his father. Kurt chided himself quietly for eavesdropping, but stayed in place any way, holding his breath and waiting to hear what else he might say.
"I hope you don't mind, but I got your number from Blaine…"
Blaine.
The name was like a chord that tugged him forward, brought him out of hiding.
Kurt stumbled out into the yard right into Sebastian's line of sight.
Sebastian's eyes locked onto Kurt's. Shocked 'o' shaped lips melted into a warm, genuine smile.
"One moment, sir," Sebastian said into the phone. He walked forward toward a stunned Kurt and held out his phone.
"Kurt," he said. "Please don't be angry, but a very important person would like very much to talk to you."
Kurt reached out a shaking hand and took the phone from Sebastian. Sebastian pulled Kurt's trembling body into his arms and held him tight. Kurt swallowed hard as he spoke into the receiver.
"Dad?"
"Kurt?"
A single word spoken from the lips of his father filled one of the biggest holes inside Kurt. He crumbled against Sebastian, who caught him up in his arms before he could hit the ground as he started to cry.