Sirens blare, shattering a calm and peaceful night to pieces.
Numerous cars round the corner. Lights spin and spiral as they approach, bouncing off the brick buildings and the people all around – blue, white, and red, blinding and eerie, casting disquieting shadows that stretch long and dysmorphic along the walls.
It's a dream, Sebastian convinces himself as the shadows flash and disappear and then flash again, as faces jumble together within the dark and the light. A horrible, agonizing nightmare –a manifestation of my anxiety at the possibility of losing Kurt to some stupid soulmate. It wouldn't be the first time. I'll wake up in my room, and it'll be the start of a brand new day.
Sebastian blinks, trying to make the lights and the cars and the people evaporate back into his head so he can put this dream behind him and get on with his life.
But everything stays firmly locked in place – the people, the buildings, the loud chirping noise as the officers try to clear the street.
The crowd of curious onlookers and good Samaritans disperse with the arrival of the police and EMTs. The police arrest the gunman pinned by the two men and take him into custody. He kicks and screams in Sebastian's direction, calling him a sick fuck a few more times before they shove him into the backseat of an awaiting squad car. More officers gather up witnesses by the curb to be questioned. They stand in a single, straight line, looking nervously over at where his body lays, still and unresponsive.
Sebastian observes it all from a distance, up until the surreal moment when he watches his own body loaded onto a gurney and rolled towards an ambulance. Knowing that Kurt is locked inside his unconscious body awakens something inside him, and his feet start to move.
"Wait!" he calls to the EMTs rushing away with his body…and his soulmate. "Wait! That's my soulmate! That's my Kurt!"
My Kurt. Those words send a rush of heat over the skin he's trapped in, despite all the heartache. He had whispered those words in the dark so many times, wanting them to be true. Speaking them out loud, even in Kurt's voice - there is something magical about them.
The EMTs don't stop, but one looks back over his shoulder at the man running up behind them.
"This man is your soulmate?" he asks as the others load Sebastian's body into the ambulance.
"Yes," Sebastian says, nodding emphatically. "Yes, that's Kurt…in my body. I'm Sebastian."
The EMT looks at him, his face oddly blank. He glances at his associate, who has stopped midway while climbing into the ambulance, an equally blank look on his face.
"So, your name is Sebastian," the first man asks, pulling out a small tablet and stylus from his pocket, "but you're in your soulmate's body. And the man on the gurney is your soulmate…"
"Kurt," Sebastian supplies. "Kurt Hummel."
"And he's in your body," the EMT clarifies, entering the information on the pad.
"Yes." Sebastian glances anxiously at the ambulance, and then at the other EMT, wondering why they don't take this information down on the way to the hospital. Kurt desperately needs medical care. That should be obvious, but everything seemed to stop dead at his revelation, and now, everyone is stuck.
"How long have you been swapped?"
The EMT finally reads the anguished expression on the face of the man in front of him, and gestures for Sebastian to climb into the rear of the ambulance.
"Uh, about ten minutes, maybe," Sebastian answers, pulling himself up the step and climbing in. He takes a seat on the bench beside the gurney.
"You mean…you guys switched?" the EMT asks, knocking on the panel behind the driver to get them moving. "Just now? When you got shot?"
"Yeah," Sebastian says. He looks down at his own face – unmoving, deceptive in its tranquility. Sebastian was right. This bodyswap thing is creepy for all of about a minute. He looks at his own face, unconscious, with Kurt somewhere inside. Sebastian sees him – coloring his features, embedded in the lines and creases of his skin, imprinting on him from the center of his being out.
It's not entirely Kurt, but it's not entirely Sebastian either.
It's them. The two of them becoming one person. Whole.
He's stolen this moment while he waits for more questions, but curiously the silence in the ambulance has continued on. He looks up and sees the two EMTs exchange looks, significant looks, looks that obviously convey more than they're letting on.
"Why?" Sebastian asks. "What aren't you guys telling me?"
The first EMT smiles quickly while the second continues to monitor Kurt's vitals.
"Nothing," he says. "I just have to ask."
And that's the last thing he says for the duration of the ride.
It nags at Sebastian's mind, but he brushes it aside. It's not his biggest concern right now.
They speed off through the city, winding along empty streets on their way to the hospital. Sebastian's eyes never move from his face. He doesn't speak, but in his head he pleads with Kurt.
Please, baby. Please, wake up. Just look at me. Please.
By the time they reach the hospital, Kurt still hasn't woken.
The ambulance pulls to a stop in front of the ER, and through the back window Sebastian can see a medical team waiting to receive them. The EMTs throw the doors open and pull the gurney out with an urgency that in no way equaled how they loaded Kurt in.
Sebastian can hear splintered bits of conversation as they roll his body away – nothing definitive, not even a complete sentence, but a singular point of interest becomes immensely clear. It has bounced back and forth between technicians to the nurses and from doctor to doctor as they head down the hallway – that Kurt and Sebastian switched right when Sebastian got shot.
The gurney flies through several sets of double doors with the entire team pushing it along until they reach a set of thick, silver doors with the words AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY painted in tall, black letters across the width of both of them. The doors open automatically as they approach. Sebastian races to catch up but is intercepted by an older nurse right outside the double doors. She stands in his way and puts her hands up to his chest to stop him.
"Mr. Smythe?" she says, her voice light but authoritative.
Sebastian peeks over her head, trying to maneuver around her, but she anticipates his moves and blocks his path. The last member of the medical team runs through the double doors and they close, sealing Sebastian out.
He glares down at the nurse in front of him.
"My soulmate…"
"Will be prepped for surgery immediately," the nurse says firmly, leaving no room for argument, "but I need to take your vitals right now."
Sebastian should have expected this. The way everyone keeps harping over their bodyswap is unnerving, especially the way they seem intent on keeping him in the dark. He has an unsettling feeling that everyone around him knows something that he should know as well.
As soon as he can, he's pulling out Kurt's iPhone and hopping online to find out.
He follows the nurse to an examination room and takes a seat while she steps out into the hallway to consult with a colleague. More whispering ensues - more not-so-subtle glances his way. He rolls his eyes and taps Kurt's feet, obnoxiously making it clear that he's not too copacetic with waiting. When the nurse returns, she subjects him to a longer examination than he had envisioned – along with his vitals she orders his blood drawn, a cheek swab, and an allergy test. He doesn't care what else they have to stick him with or what other bodily fluids they need to take, as long as they do it quickly and get it over with so he can sit somewhere and worry in peace.
Mentally, he takes that back.
Kurt's hair. He can't let anyone touch Kurt's hair.
Then suddenly Sebastian laughs. The fact that protecting Kurt's precious hair popped to the forefront of his mind shows him just how much of Kurt is seeping into his psyche. When the thought dissolves away and he comes back to the present, the two nurses are staring at him with questioning eyes.
"You had to be there," he says, waving a hand in front of his face, thinking that he needs to tell Kurt about this. He'll more than likely laugh his gorgeous ass off. Sebastian catches a glimpse of Kurt's pale skin and the hospital band wrapped around his wrist. He stops laughing. He brings the hand back down to his lap, hiding it from view.
The nurse who separated him from Kurt smiles at him.
"If you follow me, I'll take you down to the waiting room," she says.
Sebastian stands, with every movement appreciating Kurt's body, his fluidity, his inherent grace. It's in every cell of him, it effuses from every pore. There is no awkwardness at all in the way Kurt moves, and even though Sebastian is not Kurt (Sebastian is still getting used to the ins and outs of managing Kurt's body) it's not as difficult a process as he thought it would be. He likes being inside Kurt's body.
It feels safe.
It feels like home.
Sebastian follows the nurse out of the exam room, expecting to be led to the large, hectic ER waiting room that they had raced through to get here. He looks at the room as they pass it, with rows and rows of chairs, people seated almost on top of each other as they occupy each one, parents with fussy children draped uncomfortably in their laps, adults sitting beside relatives in wheelchairs…some people all alone. They all stare ahead – at the TV playing the news, at the outdated magazines, at each other, at the walls.
"Then what is this?" Sebastian asks, gesturing with a nod of Kurt's head.
"The waiting room I'm taking you to is especially for soulmates," she explains. "It's a little quieter than sitting out here in general population."
Quiet.
Sebastian likes the idea of quiet.
This hospital, like so many others Sebastian has been to, is a labyrinth of elevators and hallways, leading you around in circles to everywhere other than the place you want to be. If you don't work there, you seem to need a cryptic pirate treasure map to navigate to the different rooms.
Sebastian wants to be with Kurt, but that's not going to happen. Not yet.
The further they walk, the quieter the halls become. Few people pass them by. This wing of the hospital seems deserted. It's calm, but an off-putting calm.
Finding his soulmate is supposed to be the greatest day of his life.
Today, so far, has been almost anything but.
He shouldn't be here. Kurt shouldn't be here. None of this is right.
To top it off, there's a secret hanging over his head like the sword of Damocles, and he doesn't even know what it is.
Down at the end of a long, empty hall Sebastian sees a door – the oubliette where he's about to be dumped and, he fears, forgotten.
The nurse pats him on the shoulder, a gentle nudge to get him to step inside, and then she leaves, rushing back the way they came.
He doesn't turn to watch her go.
The room is small, which doesn't thrill Sebastian. He wants to hide off in the farthest corner and be effectively ignored until the doctor comes in to tell him what's going on. The waiting room is both soothing and clinical, which Sebastian wouldn't have considered possible if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. The chairs are grey - not Dior grey, but still a soft, appealing grey. Kurt would hate it. Parochial, he would say. How a shade of grey could be offensive, Sebastian would never understand. But Kurt did, and that was why someday he was going to be a famous designer. The walls are a cream color, and they reflect the low, golden lights all around so that instead of being harsh and bright, the room glows. It's warm. It's inviting. It's comforting.
It gives off the aura that everything will be alright, even if that is the furthest possible reality.
At this hour of the night, there is practically no one here.
Sebastian sweeps a glance around the room once before he finds a seat inside. A middle-aged man sits by one of the seats closest to the door. He's hunched over with his elbows digging into his knees, sitting so far to the edge of the chair that one swift push would probably send him sprawling to the floor. He's wound tight like a spring. Sebastian can feel his anxiety pulsating off of him. He has his hands folded beneath his chin, but his fingers thrum against the back of his hands like nothing in the world could keep them still. Sebastian wonders how long he's been here. He looks like he's going to leap from his chair any minute.
Further in the room sits a trio of women, eyes shut in meditation. A dark skinned-woman sitting cross-legged on the floor holds hands with a fair skinned, ginger haired woman seated beside her, and between them sits a young girl with unnaturally pale skin, a Mohawk of spiky purple hair, and dressed entirely in black – black net shirt with a black tank underneath, black denim skirt strategically torn and frayed, black and white striped stockings, and black Doc Marten boots. It's the boots Sebastian finds himself fixated on. They're the same boots Kurt wore all the time in high school. It seemed like he had a hundred pair of those clunky things, each in a different color.
Outside of his voice and his tight ass jeans, they were almost his defining feature.
Along with his pale skin…and his prismatic eyes.
Sebastian recants. Kurt didn't have a defining feature. He is and always will be a creature of particular excellence.
He lifts his gaze from the girl's boots and notices her violet eyes staring back at him.
Those can't be her natural color, Sebastian thinks.
He nods and she smiles, her eyes following him as he walks, fascinated by something about him as well.
Oh, please, don't come over here, Sebastian thinks over and over, finding the most secluded area in the room to sit and officially start his waiting.
The girl watches him sit, and then closes her eyes again, returning to whatever she had been doing before he arrived.
Sebastian looks down at his hands – Kurt's hands. He runs his fingers over them, marveling at the sensations – so alike, but so different. Kurt's hands are smoother, softer, so unblemished and delicate for such a strong, uncompromising man. These are the hands Sebastian wants to hold forever, to the end of the world and back. He can hold them now, but they give him little comfort without Kurt here beside him.
Sebastian can feel eyes watching him, but he chooses to ignore them. He has no reason to acknowledge anyone else's pain but his own.
He's not looking for comradery or a friend, but when he sees the young girl from the coven across the way approach him, he doesn't have the heart to tell her to fuck off.
"Hey," the girl says, sitting down in the chair one over from where Sebastian is planted, staring at his clasped hands – his last ditch effort to appear invisible.
"Hey," he says anyway.
"My name's Chelsea," the girl offers, nodding her head of spiked purple hair, silver earrings in several holes swaying as she does.
"I'm…well…I'm Sebastian," Sebastian says, not too eager to explain the specifics of his situation to yet another person.
The girl nods again.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Chelsea asks.
"Not particularly," Sebastian answers, taking a breath in and hiding his face behind his hands. He waits a moment to see if the girl in the nostalgic black Doc Marten boots will go away.
She doesn't.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Sebastian asks, muffled voice behind his hands sounding tight.
He peeks up and Chelsea shrugs.
"I've got it covered." She motions over her shoulder to the two women with their hands linked, eyes closed.
"Are your moms…praying?" Sebastian sits up, feeling slightly guilty that this girl came over to make sure he was alright and he responded by being rude to her.
"Kind of," Chelsea says. "Only one is my mom, and they're asking for blessings from the goddess…and guidance."
Sebastian raises an eyebrow, surprised at how easy the expression is in Kurt's body. In his own, it takes a bit more work and sometimes gives him a small cramp.
"Blessings?" he asks. "Blessings for who? For your dad?"
"Nah," Chelsea says with a shake of her head. "For my soulmate, Lydia. She has leukemia."
Sebastian sits up taller.
"Wait…your soulmate? But you're like…twelve."
"I'm fourteen," she corrects with a giggle. "But we've been soulmates since we were eight."
"I didn't think that was possible."
"It's rare," she says, shrugging with one shoulder, "but it happens."
Sebastian falls silent, unsure what say.
Neither of them are in the best position, but Kurt's odds might be minutely better.
"Do you still not want to talk about it?" she asks.
Sebastian looks at her, wide and honest violet-colored eyes staring at him, tired but patient, and wiser than her age. Sebastian feels a need to talk to someone, and he has a feeling that this girl will understand.
"There's this man," Sebastian starts, "that hated me all through high school, and I tried to hate him back because he wouldn't go out with me. And then one day, we ended up in the same place at the same time, and we knew. We knew without saying a word that we were in love."
Chelsea sighs fondly, her bubble-gum pink lips curling into a smile.
"Was that when you became soulmates?"
"No," Sebastian responds with a grimace. "No, it didn't happen until years later."
Chelsea tilts her head and looks at him with narrowed eyes.
"You don't like the idea of soulmates," she deduces.
"Well, it wasn't a concept that I particularly cared for…"
"Until recently?"
Sebastian nods before he answers.
"Yup."
"Until you got the soulmate you wanted?"
Sebastian's lips struggle not to smile.
"Yes."
"Do you have a picture of him?" Chelsea sits up straight and kicks her heels against the floor, waiting with her hands pressed together.
Sebastian leans in.
"You're looking at him."
Chelsea's smile drops.
"Ouch," she says. She puts a hand to the collar of her shirt and tugs out a half-heart charm on a chain around her neck. She turns the charm over and over in her fingers, and Sebastian can make out the name on the smooth side – Lydia.
"Yeah." Sebastian drops back into his seat, one eye following the heart charm as Chelsea folds her hand around it. "I was shot tonight by a mugger. I felt the bullet enter my body, but when I woke up, I was him and he was me. I was trying to protect him, but somehow that all backfired, and now he's in surgery and I'm in here."
Sebastian bows his head. He had hoped that telling his tale would have relieved some of the weight from his shoulders, but now he feels heavier than he did before.
A dainty hand reaches out and covers his.
"I'm really sorry," the girl says softly.
"Yeah," Sebastian says. His first instinct is to scoff at her sympathy, but her words are not empty, and his cynicism is not deserved, especially when this girl is dealing with heartbreak of her own.
"What is your soulmate's name?" Chelsea asks.
"K-Kurt," Sebastian says, and for the first time, his voice almost fails.
"Kurt," she repeats. "We'll ask for blessings from the goddess for your soulmate, too."
"You don't have to," Sebastian laughs dryly.
"You don't believe in a higher power, huh," she says astutely.
"I'm not a big one for faith."
"That's alright." The girl stands up and squeezes his hand. "I have faith enough for both of us."
With a reassuring smile, she returns to her group, sitting back among the two women, who open their eyes and welcome her back to the circle. Chelsea says something Sebastian can't hear, and both women turn their faces to look at him, acknowledging him with their genuine smiles and their shining eyes. They return to their circle and once again, Sebastian is alone.
Over an hour later, Sebastian finally hears the echo of footsteps coming down the hall – the first sign of life since he was deposited here. A doctor walks in, and all eyes in the room turn toward the door.
"Mr. Espinoza?" the doctor calls out.
The man in the seat by the door, who hasn't stopped his obsessive fidgeting, stands from his chair, and the rest of the room returns to their wishing and praying. Out of morbid curiosity, Sebastian listens to the doctor talk to the man who has been on the edge of insanity since he got there. Sebastian has fingers crossed for him. He has this crazy notion that if this man's soulmate comes out okay, that everyone else's soulmate will be alright, too.
It's foolish and naïve, and Kurt probably wouldn't approve, but right now it's all he's got.
"Mr. Espizona…" the tone of the doctor's voice when he says the man's name doesn't sound promising, and the entire room of surreptitious onlookers collectively holds their breath, "it's a girl. Congratulations!"
And with those words, a communal chain lifts, a chain that connected everyone together, and they sigh with relief.
It's a victory for this one man, but it's shared by them all.
"Oh, thank the Lord," the man mutters, crossing himself repeatedly, "and my wife?"
"She's in recovery, but she's going to be just fine," the doctor announces. "You can see her when she wakes up, but let me take you to your daughter."
"Yes," the man says, nodding and grinning, his hands folded over his heart as he holds himself together. He turns to regard the remaining members of the waiting room with a look of joy, but also pity, and Sebastian knows what he's really thinking as he hurries after the doctor and away to his wife.
He's glad he's no longer one of us.
"One down, two to go," the dark-skinned woman says. Chelsea winks at Sebastian and smiles.
Two hours pass after Mr. Espinoza left, and again the chain settles around them. Hope in the room begins to wane. Chelsea is asleep in Lydia's mother's lap while her own mother paces the floor. She stares at the carpet, following the same route, tracing the geometric pattern with her steps. From the intensity of her gaze, Sebastian can tell she's not just marking time. She's thinking twelve steps ahead.
Sebastian admires that. For over three hours he's been stuck in the moment, and he can't seem to move forward without knowing whether or not Kurt's okay.
More footsteps echo down the hall and another doctor walks in. The woman looks up, but the doctor walks straight for Sebastian, so she keeps up her pacing with her stride unbroken.
Even before the doctor speaks, he smiles, and Sebastian wants to leap into the air.
"Mr. Smythe?" the doctor says, the same way the other doctor had addressed Mr. Espinoza.
"Yes, yes," Sebastian says, not yet used to hearing Kurt's higher-pitched voice speak for him.
"The surgery was a complete success. You are one lucky bastard, Mr. Smythe." The doctor pats him on the shoulder as if they are friends, and Sebastian, who hates that kind of posturing, can't find it in himself to mind. "The bullet managed to miss every major artery, every organ, and lodge in your ribcage. You shattered some bone, but that's all. It's been fixed up and your body is on the mend."
Sebastian's reflex is to bounce on the balls of his feet, which is the way Kurt always reacts to exciting news, and that makes the smile on Sebastian's face grow wider. He turns his head to look at Chelsea, almost needing to share this news with her, but she's still asleep. Her mother sends him a small smile in her stead.
"My. Smythe," the doctor says, pulling his focus back. "Please follow me."
Sebastian walks out the door of the hidden waiting room, and even though his heart sincerely aches for Chelsea, hoping that everything turns out alright for her and Lydia, the same thought that Mr. Espinoza carried out with him crosses his mind.
Thank God that isn't me anymore.
"So, when can I see Kurt?" Sebastian asks, itching to blow past the doctor and head to his room, to sit by his bedside until he wakes up, to kiss him and tell him how much he loves him.
Everything's going to be alright from now on.
Sebastian would see to it.
Sebastian would take care of Kurt for the rest of his life.
The doctor stops walking. His smile slips, and Sebastian knows it's not going to be that easy.
"Mr. Smythe," he begins, "I'm going to tell you this straight out, because I think right now that's what you need to hear."
Sebastian swallows, preparing for the worst, not even sure what the worst (besides Kurt outright dying) could possibly be.
The doctor fixes Sebastian with intelligent but exhausted brown eyes and takes a cleansing breath.
"We don't know where your soulmate's soul is."