A/N: When I wrote the first chapter (which was supposed to be a one-shot) I had a whole idea regarding the direction this story would take if it were continued, and a reason for why Kurt behaved the way he did, all of this unknown to you guys since you are not me. Seeing as I got a lot of varying reactions regarding this story, I decided to continue it...
Sebastian had his hands poised at the waist of his slacks, preparing to tear the button open and drop them to the floor, but something in his mind was overriding Kurt's orders, keeping himself clothed from the waist down.
Keeping himself safe.
"I told you to shred them," Kurt said, locking his jaw around his tongue in anger. "Drop your pants and turn around."
"Uh, Kurt," Mercedes - one of the Doms watching from the bed - spoke up, the basement room suddenly silent as the group of friends gathered began to realize that things were getting way out of hand, "I think you can stop now."
"Yeah," Marley, sitting beside Mercedes, piped in, "you got him back. That's enough."
"They're right, dude. I mean, look, you scared the shit out of him," Puck added, standing from the bed and slowly approaching Kurt, keeping his distance from the pulsing electric apparatus in Kurt's hands. "That's what you wanted. Now, stop before somebody gets hurt."
"If you guys are really that weak, you are all invited to leave," Kurt snapped, his eyes never leaving his sub's face.
"Kurt, what's wrong with you?" Finn's soft voice seemed to be the only one that had any effect, causing Kurt to shift his eyes to glance at his stepbrother. "This isn't like you, man."
Sebastian could see the other Doms in the corner of his vision, their faces changing from amusement to worry, for their friend and for him, but as much as he appreciated their sudden changes of heart, he dared not move his eyes from Kurt's face to look at them.
"Nothing's wrong with me. Maybe…maybe I'm just tired of getting the short end of the stick all the damn time," Kurt said, tightening his grip on the electric vibrator, wringing it in his hands. From the cracking sounds it made, Sebastian thought Kurt might actually snap it in two. "Maybe it's exhausting turning the other cheek and watching everyone get away with treating me like dirt."
"Dude, we all know how you feel," Puck said, splaying his arms wide to indicate everyone in the room, "and you're right. But you got him back. He's your sub. You have a responsibility to take care of him. If you hurt him…"
"Kurt," the final silent person in the room stood from the bed, "if I had known this was what you were going to do, I would have never convinced Sebastian to come back here." Blaine stepped between Kurt and his sub, placing his hand over Kurt's, trying to get him to release his grip. "Finn is right, this isn't like you. You need to stop this now and go talk to your dad. He'll be able to help you."
Kurt bit his lower lip, and Sebastian, now shielded by Blaine's body, could see Kurt consider Blaine's words – all his friend's words. Kurt shook his head, his eyes filled with conflicting emotions.
"How can my dad help me?" Kurt asked, sounding close to tears. "My mother loved him. With all her life and everything she had, she loved him. Finn's mother loves him. All the rest of you with subs are all so frickin' in love. Why did I end up with him?"
"I don't know, baby," Blaine said, putting his other hand up to Kurt's cheek and touching him gently. Sebastian felt Kurt's anxiety start to bleed away, as if the stress Sebastian felt coming off of Kurt's body was his own. But the hand on Kurt's cheek – Blaine's hand stroking Kurt's cheek, giving him comfort – stung Sebastian to his core. Suddenly it didn't matter what Kurt had tried to do, what revenge he had tried to exact. Sebastian hated Blaine's hand on Kurt's cheek – he hated Blaine comforting Kurt when he could not.
Sebastian wanted to comfort Kurt, and Blaine had taken his place.
"I'm sorry," Blaine said, continuing to stroke Kurt's cheek, "I don't have any answers for you. But there's nothing we can do to change this."
Nothing we can do.
Nothing we can do to change this.
They had discussed this, discussed him, trying to find a way out for Kurt.
Sebastian's hands, still locked on his slacks, curled into the fabric, straining not to rip it to shreds.
He knew that Blaine was the only thing standing between him and an electric enema, but the urge to shove Blaine aside was becoming strong within him.
The front door opening and then slamming shut upstairs broke the tension in the downstairs room.
"Kurt?" Kurt's father called from the living room upstairs. "Kiddo? Where are you, bud? There's a bunch of cars outside."
The Doms all stepped back, all except Blaine, who kept his eyes locked on Kurt's, trying to bring him back from this place of irrationality and sorrow that Kurt was wallowing in.
"We're down here, Burt," Finn called out, not entirely convinced that Blaine would be able to completely diffuse the situation. Finn had as much reason as anyone to despise Sebastian, especially considering how he had once threatened to leak badly Photoshopped nude photographs of him all over the Internet, but Sebastian was a part of their family now. He belonged with Kurt. And Kurt – usually kind and compassionate Kurt, normally so forgiving of everyone – did not need to be labeled as an abusive Dom. That title could follow him his entire life - destroy any chance of a future for him.
It might even get him thrown in jail.
Kurt didn't move. Even the sound of his father's footsteps descending the stairs didn't snap Kurt out of his haze. Puck moved quickly, removing the buzzing instrument from Kurt's hands, powering it down, and putting it back in its drawer. Puck wasn't eager to see Kurt grounded for life, especially with Glee Choir Regionals coming up. Finn could go on all he wanted about the beautiful voice of his sub Rachel, but Puck knew that Kurt was one of the real voices behind the choir. They didn't need to lose their rank as champions over Kurt's new douchebag sub.
So, when Burt Hummel took the last step down into Kurt's room, he didn't get the full effect of his son standing menacingly with a large electric discipline device in his hands, but from the tracks of his tears and the way he stared at Blaine – that look of heartbreak and longing he had on his face when he first told Burt about his new sub, and how it wasn't Blaine – along with the presence of the new boy standing half-dressed and seething at the back of Blaine's head, Burt got a pretty good idea what was going on.
He looked around the room at the other Doms assembled, all watching the scene with varying degrees of concern in their eyes.
Whatever had been going on down here, he must have just missed it.
"Uh, hey kids," Burt said, approaching his son, "why don't you guys head out of here. I have a feeling I need to talk to my son alone."
Nods of agreement circulated from Dom to Dom in a wave around the circle. Each one picked up their belongings and headed up the stairs. The last two to leave were Finn and Blaine. Finn looked at Kurt with sympathetic eyes and left him with an, "I'll be upstairs if you need me." Finn didn't just feel bad for his stepbrother. He felt guilty. Upstairs in his room waiting for him was his sub, Rachel –a girl he had fallen in love with long before he discovered they would be together forever. He considered himself lucky to have her, and naïvely thought that maybe this was the way the whole Dom/sub thing worked all along. You fall in love, and you love so strongly, that person becomes yours – like the universe knows how you feel and gives you what you want.
He was certain that Kurt and Blaine would be together. It just seemed right. They fit one another perfectly, like pieces of the same puzzle. There wasn't a single person in their circle of friends who saw this thing with Sebastian coming. It was almost as if, even after all of the shit that Kurt had been through, fate stuck its head in and said, "You thought that was bad? The bullying and the dumpster throws and the pee balloons and the everything else? Well, watch this."
It was a cruel joke, and it tore Finn up inside thinking that the same force that controlled who they eventually spent the rest of their lives with blessed him so wonderfully and cursed Kurt so horribly.
Kurt didn't deserve it.
But after Kurt found out about Sebastian having his name on his collar bone, and after he cried and cried, he pulled himself together and went to Westerville to claim his sub. He wasn't going to let this bring him down and tear him apart. No, he didn't love Sebastian, not in the slightest. He could barely tolerate him, but Kurt had a responsibility, and he never turned his back on a responsibility.
He had driven to Dalton with Blaine by his side, and for two hours they had discussed how things were going to change – and they said good-bye to the life they had always dreamed of together. In that way that Blaine always seemed to have of helping Kurt see the silver lining in even the shittiest situations, he convinced Kurt that this could be a good thing, that maybe he and Sebastian could grow together like in one of those old tragic romantic stories, where the lovers are thrown together by circumstances beyond their control. They hate each other at first, but they grow to understand each other, and in the end, they are more in love then anyone has ever been.
Kurt hadn't entirely bought into it, but it was enough to give him hope. He ran down the hallway to the senior commons – the same hallway he and Blaine had run down on that first day when Kurt went to spy on the Warblers – and when he saw Sebastian step out of his classroom and turn to face him, recognition on his face as to why Kurt was there, Kurt had believed for a second – one beautiful second – that Sebastian was actually happy to see him.
Until Sebastian humiliated him.
Until Sebastian laughed in his face and called him all sorts of names.
Until Sebastian had called him a Lima Loser.
Kurt had felt his Dom side ignite like a blowtorch in his brain. He knew he had the power to bend Sebastian to his will then and there, but he didn't take it. Because it wouldn't make him look powerful. It would make him look petty and small.
Besides, why would he want Sebastian so much when Sebastian wanted nothing to do with him?
So he turned and left, drove straight home, climbed into bed, and stayed there the whole weekend. He turned off his phone, didn't log into his computer, and after hearing what had happened from Blaine, all of his friends gave him his space. It wasn't until late Sunday night, when Finn and Rachel brought Kurt a glass of warm milk, that he had finally told them everything.
Finn didn't think he would ever forget the look in Kurt's eyes when he told them the story, but he didn't have to.
Kurt had it in his eyes now as he stared at Blaine.
Finn sighed and took the stairs up and out of the basement.
There was nothing more he could do, and selfish as it was, he needed Rachel.
After Finn had gone, Blaine lowered his hand to Kurt's shoulder and squeezed it tight.
He didn't hug Kurt anymore. He was no longer allowed.
"Call me before you go to bed," Blaine said softly, catching a single one of Kurt's tears on his thumb before he turned to go.
Kurt couldn't even nod. He didn't want to see Blaine leave. He was afraid this would be the last time anyone who loved him the way Blaine did would touch him again.
He couldn't have Blaine.
He would never have Blaine.
And not having Blaine was the same as not having love.
He might as well break his legs and cut out his tongue, because nothing in the world – not even performing – would ever make him happy again.
Burt stood quietly in the room with his son and his son's sub until he heard the last of the cars from upstairs pull out of his driveway, and then he finally spoke.
"Kurt," he said, putting a hand on Kurt's shoulder and giving it a pat, "why don't you settle down, take a shower and get ready for dinner. I'm going to show this young man to his new room."
Both Kurt's and Sebastian's eyes shifted to look at Kurt's father, both boys mildly confused.
"B-but…but he…" Kurt started, and his father nodded.
"I know," Burt said. "I know. But I don't think the two of you are quite ready to be together yet. I think this is for the best."
Kurt felt himself want to argue, but he didn't understand why. Dom/sub ed in public schools in America was about on par with sex ed. One sub in his choir class, Brittany, still thought that storks brought babies to their parents, and even Finn and Mercedes once believed that cucumbers could give people AIDS. Something in Kurt's body needed to be close to his sub, regardless of whether or not he could stand the sight of him. But luckily, exhaustion had begun to take its toll, and Kurt agreed, figuring a good cry and a long conversation with Blaine might be all he would need to put him out for the night. Then he could deal with everything in the morning.
"You may take him," Kurt said, head bowed. Sebastian knew that even though Kurt's father was an older, stronger Dom than his son, he still needed Kurt's permission to take care of his son's sub.
Burt turned to Sebastian with friendly eyes but a stern expression – one that radiated worry and compassion, and a slight string of disappointment, but not all aimed at Kurt - maybe a little aimed at Sebastian, but a lot put upon himself. He extended an arm out to Sebastian, and Sebastian uncurled his fingers from his waistband - fingers nearly cramping as he had waited for permission to move. As they walked past Kurt, still stuck in place like a statue, Burt stopped beside his son and cleared his throat.
"Kurt," he said, "isn't there something that you need to say to your sub?"
Sebastian saw Kurt grind his teeth together, but he said nothing, and his eyes didn't move.
"Kurt…" Burt repeated.
"This is your home now, Sebastian," Kurt said. "You may do what you like while you're here."
Sebastian looked at Burt, and Burt smiled. Sebastian noticed that Burt's smiles were more reserved than Kurt's were, so Sebastian wondered if Kurt got his bright, exuberant smiles from his mother. Burt took a step away, but Sebastian stayed, his eyes still locked on Kurt's face.
"Thank you, sir," Sebastian said. He stared at Kurt and prayed that Kurt would turn his head to look at him, but he didn't. Kurt walked off across the room while Burt pulled Sebastian toward the stairs.
The last image Sebastian had of Kurt before he disappeared out of the basement room was Kurt sitting on the edge of his bed, his shoulders shaking gently as if he were crying.