A/N: Written for the anon prompt 'raindrop'. Kurt bumps into Sebastian at a funeral. Warning for mention of character death. Future fic, mention of past!Klaine, mention of Finn.
Kurt stood beneath the raindrops and let them ruin him. They soaked his suit, dripped through his hair, rolled down his skin and traveled beneath his clothes. He didn't acknowledge them, he ceased to care. He figured they couldn't do more damage than had already been done, so he would try to become one with them. He would let them surround him, absorb him, leech away his pain, drown his soul.
A number of hands touched him - grabbed his shoulder and squeezed, attempting to be comforting or to find comfort, but he was too numb to take and he had nothing left to give.
Kurt could start marking death by raindrops, the way most people marked birthdays by the amount of candles on their cake. There were no raindrops at his mother's funeral. In fact, it was a beautiful, crisp day. The sky had been cornflower blue, with barely a cloud to be seen.
Kurt counted 2096 raindrops at Finn's funeral service. He started counting the moment the priest started reciting the Lord's Prayer and stopped at some point after his father numbly pulled him away from the casket.
At his father's service, Kurt didn't stop counting until he reached close to 10,000, but by then, he wasn't sure if he was counting the rain on his face, or his tears. They all seemed to blur together.
Now here he was, barely five years later, watching as friends of Carole's gathered to lay her in the ground. He had outlived them all – his mother, his brother, his father, his stepmother – all gathered together with barely a plot between them, no space left over.
He decided at that moment he would probably be cremated.
Counting the raindrops now seemed pretty useless. They just seemed like a necessary evil, almost like a prop. If this had been a birthday party, it would have been confetti and crepe paper. A wedding, and he'd be pelted with rice. Somebody died, let's turn on the rain.
The service was beautiful as funerals go. He didn't have a hand in planning this one. He felt his time had been better spent sitting at Carole's bedside, listening as she talked about falling in love with his father again and again, like she would forget if she didn't repeat every detail over and over.
The Ladies Auxiliary arranged a wake down at the VFW, and soon after the prayers were said and the flowers left, the mourners made their way back to town to celebrate Carole`s life the way she would have wanted - around a table full of casseroles and Jell-O molds, not standing beside a hole in the ground.
Kurt didn't watch the people leave. He didn't watch as he was slowly left alone. He waited for the quiet that came with being left alone so he could say his final good-byes.
But one man didn't leave. He stood at a distance, not too far from the casket, quietly respecting Kurt's privacy.
His presence irritated Kurt. What was he waiting for?
Good-bye is a short word, Kurt thought. Just say it and be gone.
Carole would want Kurt to be polite, but Kurt felt like being an ass.
"Is there something I can help you with?" Kurt bit out, not raising his eyes from the array of roses along the ground to address the blurry figure fully.
"Don't get your panties in a knot, princess," a recognizable sardonic voice replied.
"Oh poop on toast," Kurt said, his head snapping up to meet the mocking green eyes staring at him. "What in gay hell are you doing here?"
"Paying my respects," Sebastian replied. He looked around him at the empty cemetery. "So, where are your friends? I thought they'd all be here singing inspirational power ballads or something."
Kurt looked back down at the display of roses – all white roses except for one lonely bouquet of lavender. He knew sterlings were Carole's favorite. He had gone to seven different florists searching for them. He finally found a sad little bunch down at the Safeway. He occupied his mind examining their pathetic, wilting petals to try and quell his shame.
"I didn't tell them."
Sebastian didn't ask why, just raised an eyebrow with the expectation that Kurt would continue.
"We're all so busy, and we see each other so rarely nowadays." Kurt sighed, looking up into the falling rain. "I didn't want to become the kind of friends who only made it a point to get together when somebody died." Kurt let his eyes wander over the graves and headstones, searching for anything to look at instead of Sebastian's judgmental face. "I'll shoot them all an email when I get back."
Kurt chanced a glance back at Sebastian. To Kurt's surprise, Sebastian wasn't judging him, simply listening to him talk with an expression of genuine interest.
"Wait…what are you doing here?" Kurt asked again, suddenly realizing that Sebastian coming to pay his last respects to Carole wasn't as normal as their deceptively comfortable tete a tete made it seem.
"Don't be so suspicious. I have a few relatives pushing up daisies here as well." Sebastian waved vaguely to the other side of the cemetery, where the large plots and mausoleums stood. "I just happened to see your little party from where I was, and thought I recognized your monumental coiffure."
Kurt nodded.
Sebastian nodded.
Awkwardness started to set in.
"And…how's Blaine?" Sebastian asked with a strange hesitation in his voice. Kurt turned his head away to roll his eyes in private.
"Uh…things between us didn't quite work out the way we imagined," Kurt admitted.
"You mean, even after the huge, showy proposal?"
Kurt cringed at the sound of amusement in Sebastian's voice.
"Yeah, well it seems the rest of our relationship didn't quite live up to the hype." A bitter edge crept into Kurt's voice. "Anyway, he sent his regards and a beautiful bouquet of callas from California." Kurt gestured half-heartedly to a vibrant display of pure white flowers fairing much better than both of them in the pouring rain.
"That's too bad," Sebastian said, a little unconvincingly. "Believe it or not, I was really rooting for you guys."
"Look, Smythe," Kurt barked, trying to keep the tremble from his voice, "as amusing as dredging up all my pain is for you, I'm not doing this now, and I'm definitely not doing it here. So, if you'll excuse me…"
Kurt turned, slipping slightly on the slick grass as he headed away from the grave, his heart pulling in all directions. He wasn't ready to leave Carole just yet, but he was, forced into doing something he didn't want to do by circumstances beyond his control. A few feet away he made the decision to turn around, stand his ground, demand that the meerkat-faced interloper leave, but a soft voice, softer than the rain and even more poignant, stopped him.
"I'm sorry."
"What?" Kurt hissed, starting to feel the chill of the rain for the first time that day.
Sebastian walked toward Kurt, hands shoved into his pockets, face sincere and repentant. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to cause you more pain. Far from it. I just…"
"You just what?" Kurt asked, his voice still biting but feeling more curious than angry.
Sebastian looked up into the rain himself, hiding for a moment from Kurt's scrutiny.
"I was just hoping to see old Kurt again. You know, the one who didn't put up with my bullshit."
"So, you're looking for a fight?" Kurt asked aghast, pulling a disgusted face.
"Uh, no," Sebastian chuckled, shaking his head. He looked down at his expensive black shoes sinking into the shallow mud. "I'm not good at this," he admitted. "Comforting people. It's never really been my forte. I just thought that, you know, if I got you sparring with me, it might…I don't know…help…"
Kurt smirked at the man in the ruined Armani suit shrinking beneath his gaze.
"So, you want to help me?"
"Yeah, well, I'm kind of shocked myself." Sebastian looked back at Kurt, his sea green eyes smiling through a fan of long eyelashes.
Kurt bit his lip, stifling a laugh.
"Look," Sebastian said, continuing his way over to Kurt, "I don't suppose you want to spend the next three hours shaking hands and eating tuna casserole. Why don't you come with me and we'll…I don't know…do something."
Kurt waited a moment for the catch that always accompanied an offer from Sebastian Smythe. This time, there wasn't one.
Sebastian countered Kurt's look of indecision with another question.
"If you could do one thing right now, what would it be?" he asked, rephrasing the question and hoping this time for an answer.
Kurt had meant to say, "I really want to get away from the pain."
It would have been the truest words he'd spoken in years.
But what he ended up saying was, "I really want to get away from the rain."
Sebastian smiled.
"Now that I think I can do."
Sebastian walked past him, starting ahead to where he had parked his black Porsche at the curb. Kurt watched Sebastian, but he didn't follow, still a little confused by this unpredictable man's motives.
Sebastian turned back to Kurt. Seeing he hadn't moved, he extended a hand.
"Come on, Hummel," he said, his voice soft despite his words. "I'm not looking forward to drowning out here."
Kurt tilted his head quizzically.
"What are you really doing here?"
Sebastian sighed a long, drawn out breath, as if he had just been caught red-handed.
"I'm in Westerville, visiting my folks. I saw the obit in the paper. I didn't know if…" Sebastian's cocky attitude deflated a bit. "I just thought you might need a friend."
Kurt felt a smile growing, just slightly, on his otherwise numb face.
"And you're sure you weren't here hoping to see Blaine?" Kurt asked, peering at Sebastian through narrow eyelids.
Sebastian rolled his eyes.
"Well, nowhere in that obit did it say 'funeral hosted by Blaine Anderson', so no. I came here looking for you."
Kurt shook his head and smiled. Only Sebastian Smythe could make a truly tasteless comment resemble a compliment.
Kurt stepped forward. He looked at Sebastian's still outstretched hand and took it in his. Sebastian might have sucked in a sharp breath at the contact, but the reaction was so subtle, so silent, Kurt almost didn't hear it. Not much registered after Kurt took Sebastian's hand; not the relentless stinging rain, not the gloomy clouds overheard, not the long walk around the numerous mud puddles to the car waiting for them. The only thing Kurt felt after his hand touched Sebastian's, the only thing that grounded him for the rest of the day, was a welcome, all-encompassing warmth that he hadn't felt in years.