A/N: Another one-shot for the anon prompt 'killers' (again I used contract killers for my purposes). Mention of Kadam. Warning for mention of bondage, toys, language, and minor violence. Futurefic, AU.
Kurt presses his body into the brick building behind him while he waits for the sound of footsteps, schooling his breathing, remaining motionless, becoming one with the wall. The first shuffle of footsteps approaches – light treads gripping the ground…Vans. Strike one. The second, jogging his way, giving him only seconds to make a determination – heavy, no real tread, a slight quick-slow, quick-slow gait. His mark didn't have a limp. Strike two. Long minutes tick by, stretching into tens of minutes, half an hour. Time has no real meaning for Kurt. He lives his life from moment to moment; whether his mark shows up now or an hour from now is of no consequence to Kurt.
Kurt is a patient man.
The muffled click, click, click of a size 12 John Varvatos Oxford catches Kurt's attention and he grins from ear to ear in anticipation of another stunning job well done. From what he knows of this puffed-up, pampered peacock, his job should be a cinch. Kurt has read his dossier over so many times he has the man's deets memorized – Sebastian Smythe, CEO of RezCorp, a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company, developing wonder-drugs to defeat a new age of super bugs. It sounded respectable on paper, but this man was no philanthropist. Private jet, private yacht, penthouse uptown…the kind of man who has never gotten his hands dirty in his life. He probably doesn't even tie his own shoes, Kurt thinks, suppressing a chuckle. An hour, two at the most, then he'll be back at his loft and balls deep in his 'boyfriend of the month'. His current model is blond and British and doesn't like to be kept waiting.
Kurt salivates at the thought of how he left Adam – handcuffed and shackled to his king-sized bed with a vibrating plug up his ass. He'll be ready and raring the moment Kurt walks through the door.
The click, click, click of heels on pavement becomes progressively louder. Kurt holds his breath. He tries not to be too eager; he mentally walks through the specifics, not dwelling on the humongous payload in store for him once this job is done. All he needs is an arm, a sleeve, anything so that he can drag the man into the alley and snap his neck. It will be quick, simple, relatively painless…or so he's heard.
He's been in a lot of tight spaces, but luckily he's never come close to having his neck broken.
In a way it's a shame that Sebastian Smythe has to die. Kurt has looked at his picture so many times, memorizing the set of his jaw when he smiles (though it's more like the grin of a jackal bearing down on a baby gazelle), the perfect slope of his nose (far too pretty to be natural), but it's his eyes that Kurt always falls back on. His sea green, seductive, intelligent eyes; eyes that hide secrets, almost as many secrets as Kurt's, he'd wager. Kurt keeps the worn and worried photograph in his jacket pocket. Sebastian might be a mark, but the man is gorgeous, and in the only soft part left of his heart, he doesn't want Sebastian to suffer.
The sound of footsteps stops and Kurt flattens himself further against the wall, slinking inch by inch to peek out into the alley and see what's keeping his next paycheck…
…but the man in the $300 dress shoes has vanished.
Shit, Kurt curses to himself, annoyed that he let his own daydreaming get in the way of his work. Shit, shit, shit!
Kurt surveys the street, the sidewalk, the shop doors, the window of the pub across the way, trying to find a place where Sebastian might have ducked in. From his hiding place all he can see are a few kids on skateboards, some late-night commuters, and an elderly Chinese man walking a sick and scraggily looking mutt. Needing a better vantage point, he leaps up onto the fire escape, nimbly climbing the shaky metal frame, negotiating the rickety rungs and stepping soundlessly like a cat. He jumps up onto the ledge and his eyes sweep the roof, making sure he doesn't have any unexpected company to deal with. Confident that he's alone, he races from ledge to ledge, peering over the side down to the street below, trying to find the man himself, possibly coming out of one of the store fronts, or his black town car waiting by the curb or at the light, anything to get back on the trail of the man he had envision killing tonight.
He takes one more stab at his view of the street, cursing silently in his head, imaging with a wicked grin that poor Adam is going to have to sit tight a bit longer than planned. He heads back toward the fire escape, taking cursory peeks over the edge, reaching out with a steady hand for the U-shaped railing.
He feels the shift of the metal beneath his hand a second too late.
A fist wrapped in a leather glove shoots up from over the side and nails Kurt right on the nose.
He's startled, starbursts igniting in front of his eyes and obscuring his vision. Kurt's been hit before, and he for sure can take a hit, but this was different. The person behind that punch knew exactly how to incapacitate him. It's not only the searing pain that stuns him. The pain he can ignore, but now he's completely blind. He stumbles backward, trying to find his bearings, recalling the layout of the roof in his mind so he can figure out a place to hide. He hears a foot crunch into the loose gravel on the tar and swings out in that direction, hoping he might land a lucky punch.
Fingers wrap around both wrists and he's shoved back, just as his vision begins to clear. They don't travel far, and when Kurt comes to his senses enough to realize who has him trapped, he's being bent backward over the body of a square exhaust vent.
"No way," Kurt groans, struggling to force his attacker off him. "No fucking way!"
Kurt rears up with his legs and kicks out, a blow that would have connected right below the other man's ribcage, but he dodges quickly, slamming down on Kurt's nose again with the hard crown of his head.
"Fuck!" Kurt screeches, turning his head away and blinking madly to dissolve a new constellation of stars from his vision.
"Next time, I break it," Kurt's attacker snarls.
"This can't be happening," Kurt growls, "but what are you doing up here?"
"Same as you, princess."
Kurt snaps his head angrily to face the smug grin and familiar green eyes glaring down at him.
"But you're a…"
"Contract killer hired to assassinate you?" Sebastian finishes.
"I was going to say a capitalist pig," Kurt snarls.
"And you, Mr. Hummel, are an up-and-coming clothing designer with your own successful line," Sebastian offered, watching Kurt's face grow pale. "High profile jobs are excellent covers for our line of work, are they not?"
"Perhaps…" Kurt pushes up against Sebastian's grip but it only tightens. Sebastian presses down harder with the weight of his body to keep Kurt pinned. Kurt knows he's up against the ropes, but he's not yet willing to admit defeat.
"Look, princess," Sebastian says with an air of frustration, "I know all about you and you know all about me, so let's cut to the chase. I have a little proposition for you, a little you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours action."
Kurt raises an eyebrow.
"I'm listening," Kurt says, relaxing onto the exhaust pipe since he knows he's probably not going anywhere, but still ready to pounce if the occasion warrants. He doesn't like to be taken by surprise, and this night has been nothing but surprises so far.
"You know the people who want me dead, and I happen to know the people who want you dead. Since neither of us wants to be dead, I propose an exchange of services for mutual benefit."
Kurt sighs.
"Are you always this long winded?" he asks. "I imagine meetings with you are boring as fuck."
"I need a bodyguard," Sebastian simplifies with an exaggerated eye roll. "And I have feeling that you do, too. You just didn't know it till right now."
Kurt opens his mouth to object, but Sebastian's right. He hates to admit it, but he thought for certain he knew every hired gun pointed his way.
Sebastian came from too far out of left field for Kurt's taste.
"And how would this work?" Kurt asks. He feels Sebastian's grip on his wrists relax, wishing in a masochistic way that he would tighten them again.
"Well, I have a security detail at my work and my penthouse, whereas you seem to prefer to work and live where any gunman with a homemade silencer and a $20 sight could pick you off with relative ease."
Kurt scoffs.
"I'd like to see you try it," he says.
Sebastian leans down lower, his grin widening sadistically.
"I did try it," Sebastian reveals. "To make sure."
Kurt swallows hard, his own self-assured smile dropping fast.
"So," Sebastian continues, enjoying the way Kurt squirms uncomfortably beneath him, "you'll move in with me for the time being. I have an empty room you can use as your studio, and in the meantime, we're at each other's disposal. You'll watch my back on dinner dates and other outings that take me away from my base of operations, and in return I'll go with you to your events."
"And why would I…"
"If I'm not mistaken, isn't Fashion Week coming up soon?" Sebastian says. Kurt concentrates on Sebastian's mouth when he speaks, the way he wraps his lips around the words ever so enticing. "Lots of crowds, faceless guests with backstage access, poorly lit portable tents with dark corners..."
"What are you trying to say?" Kurt feels himself shiver for the first time in his adult life. Listening to Sebastian lay it out so plain, it seems so obvious. Why didn't he see it before?
"What I'm saying is that the people who want you dead obviously thought this out a whole helluva lot better than you have."
"Fuck," Kurt exclaims, at a loss for anything else to say.
"Fuck is right, which reminds me…" Sebastian moves farther up between Kurt's legs, purposefully rubbing alongside Kurt's untimely erection with his own, "we didn't talk about benefits."
"What makes you think I would even be interested?" Kurt lies. It probably would have worked, too, if the object of his body's lust wasn't lying out over him, teasing him, reminding him of what's waiting for him back home in his loft.
"Let's say a little British birdy told me that I might be your type."
Adam.
Fuck.
"Really, Kurt," Sebastian continues when he sees the acknowledgement of betrayal on Kurt's face, "you should be more selective about who you tie to your bed."
"All right," Kurt relents, "well, since it seems that I don't have any other choices…"
"Oh, you have other choices…" Sebastian lifts a bit up off Kurt's body, leaving him wanting, "it's just that most of them end up with you in a box, and not necessarily dead while you're in there."
"I get it," Kurt says, following the heat of Sebastian's body as the other man stands. "So, where do we go from here?"
"My place," Sebastian says, helping Kurt off the pipe with a hand on his upper arm. Kurt shrugs away and brushes himself off, eying Sebastian shrewdly, prepared for any sudden moves.
"How do I know that I can trust you?" Kurt asks, wincing at what has to be the most cliché thing he's ever said.
Sebastian shrugs.
"You can't," he says, putting his hand back on Kurt's arm, knowing it must annoy the ever-loving shit out of him, and drags him back to the fire escape, smacking him on the ass for good measure, "but won't it be fun to find out?"