A/N: In bed after sex with his Dom, Sebastian starts prying into Kurt's privacy, specifically the meaning behind some of his tattoos. Sebastian feels he doesn't know Kurt the way he should, the way he wants to. Plus, he's considering the future...and how he's going to keep Kurt a part of it.

This takes place in the future of this series, but also shows how the lines have begun to blur between them - between Dom and sub, and boyfriends (which they have yet to admit they are).

Warning for light angst, cigarette smoking, and sexual content.

Kneeling on Kurt's violet bed sheets beside his Dom, Sebastian watches Kurt light his second post-sex clove. Kurt sucks on the end as he lights it, the flame from his Zippo burning the tip, turning it red, making it smoke. Then he flips the lid on the lighter shut and tosses it aside. Lying on his stomach with his arms over the edge of the mattress, he blows smoke out around the filter pinched between his lips. He doesn't look back at Sebastian, but laughs to himself, knowing that his sub's been staring, which he tends to do most of the time when Kurt's naked in front of him.

For a teenaged boy with plenty of notches in his own bedpost to brag about, he acts an awful lot like a wide-eyed virgin around Kurt, and Kurt can't say he doesn't enjoy it.

All of the taboo and the stroke to his ego with none of the fear of ending up in jail.

Score.

"What's up, preppy?" Kurt asks, taking a puff. "I can smell your mind working."

"It's amazing you can smell anything over those fucking death sticks," Sebastian says, waving the smoke away when Kurt turns and blows a mouthful directly at him.

"You really mind?" Kurt asks in that cynical way he uses for rhetorical questions, but this time it sounds to Sebastian like he might care about the answer.

"Not really," Sebastian shrugs. "Your lungs, right? Your business. Who cares if second-hand smoke kills about fifty thousand non-smokers every year?"

"Well, as long as you don't mind," Kurt says dryly. He turns away, and Sebastian gets the impression that the answer he gave was not the one Kurt wanted to hear. "So spill, preppy. What's on your mind?"

Sebastian raises a hand and puts it on Kurt's left shoulder, over the dark indigo star there - one that, from close up, looks like a window, containing the moon and the night sky. "Tell me about your tattoos," Sebastian says boldly.

Kurt chuckles on his smoke. "I can't, preppy." He takes the cigarette from his lips and taps the ash into a purple glass ashtray on the floor.

"Why not?"

"Because" – Kurt puts the cigarette back between his lips – "some of them are too personal."

"Okay," Sebastian says, not sure if that's a reason or an excuse, "can you tell me about the other ones?"

"You know, I didn't dish out thousands of dollars on ink so I'd be forced to tell every nosy busybody a story. I'm not Hans Christian fucking Anderson," Kurt says. "They're for me. Besides" – another suck, another stream of smoke, another tap on the ashtray – "why the fuck do you want to know?"

Sebastian shrugs behind Kurt's back. "Because I want to know."

Kurt huffs, unsure what other response he was expecting. Kurt rarely gives anyone an uncluttered answer right out of the box, but neither does Sebastian, which is probably why Kurt finds himself opening up to Sebastian more and more. They're both the same brand of jerk. They both play the same stupid, petty games.

"Alright, smart ass," Kurt says with an irritated head shake, "why don't we do this? You tell me what you think they mean."

"And you'll tell me if I'm right?"

Kurt gives Sebastian a non-committal head bob and takes another drag. "I'll think about it."

"Okay…" Sebastian looks down Kurt's body at the tattoos he can see. There's another whole collection on Kurt's chest, but the more significant ones seem to be on Kurt's back, either because he had more space to put them there, or because then he doesn't have to see them.

Sebastian has no clue where to start. Some of them seem self-explanatory, but he knows even those have a deeper meaning. He straddles the small of Kurt's back. Leaning forward, he touches Kurt's left forearm, starting with one of the more familiar, and probably the more dangerous, tattoos Kurt has.

"I know that Elizabeth is your mom's name, but these designs…" Sebastian ghosts over the letters and symbols with his fingertips. He um's and uh's a few times, tripping over false starts. Kurt sighs impatiently, unwilling to wait for his sub to come up with a guess that won't even be close. He rests his cigarette in his ashtray and grabs Sebastian's hand.

"That" – Kurt takes Sebastian's finger and puts it to his skin, tracing the lines and whorls that cover his arm – "was the pattern from the bodice of my mother's wedding gown. The dress was destroyed sitting in my dad's attic. Fuckin' water damage. It was irreparable. So I salvaged a piece of the lace, took it to a guy I know in New York, and had him do this."

"H-he did a wonderful job," Sebastian stutters. He had thought when he first saw the tattoo that it looked like fabric, but he had no idea it would turn out to be so insanely personal. But then why would Kurt put a tattoo on his body if it wasn't personal? Kurt doesn't have the kinds of throwaway tattoos that drunk college students get – no cartoon characters, no kanji, no random animals, nothing just for the sake of having ink on his skin. Sebastian should have thought this through a bit better before he invaded Kurt's privacy, but he still feels lost around Kurt. There's so much about his Dom that he's dying to know – like everything that's happened to him up until the night they first met. But between the dominating and the fucking and the time they spend at the club, he doesn't know how to ask.

How do you get close to a man who expresses affection with the sting of a riding crop?

The answer, Sebastian knows, is time. Submission and time.

Sebastian has submission; it's the time he's running short on.

"And the shears?" Sebastian asks.

Kurt lets go of Sebastian's finger and returns to his cigarette. He takes a draw before he gives Sebastian an answer, weighing whether or not he wants to give one.

"I used to design clothes back in high school," Kurt says, blowing a plume of smoke between pursed lips, the cloud of grey around them hanging heavy, filling the air with the sharp scent of spice. "I wanted to be a designer, actually."

"Was that the calling your father thinks you missed?"

"Jesus Christ!" Kurt coughs a laugh around a drag from his clove. "Do you remember everything I say, preppy, or do you write it down?"

"I have a 5.0 GPA," Sebastian says with an audible eye roll. "My memory is eidetic."

"Fair enough," Kurt says. "And the answer to that is sort of. I had a lot of callings, left behind a lot of unrealized dreams."

"Any you want to reveal?" Sebastian asks. "Or do I have to do some more guessing?"

"I'm not saying anything," Kurt laughs, but with a stream of discomfort flowing underneath his words. "You can guess all you want. I don't have to confirm a thing."

"Fine," Sebastian says, readjusting over Kurt's ass. "Well, I'd say music is in there somewhere." Sebastian touches the clefs underneath Kurt's right ear. "Treble and bass, so you either play the piano, or you sing."

Kurt rolls on to his back between Sebastian's legs. He crosses his arms behind his head and looks up into his sub's inquisitive eyes.

"I do both," Kurt says. "But the clefs represent singing. I have a wide range. And before you ask, no. I'm not singing for you." Kurt glances subconsciously at the wisps of cigarette smoke drifting around them. "I don't do that anymore."

Sebastian brushes off that setback.

"We'll see," he says, giving his Dom a smug wink. Kurt unwinds one arm and pinches Sebastian on the inner thigh. It hurts like a bitch, but Sebastian doesn't flinch. Kurt flips back over onto his stomach and crushes out his cigarette.

"Any other insights, preppy?" Kurt asks.

"The tree," Sebastian says, eyeing the branches, the leaves blowing off on an unseen wind, as if meant to represent a day in autumn, "and the birds."

"Mrrr!" Kurt makes a loud buzzer noise. "Not tonight. I'm not going into that tonight."

"Okay," Sebastian relents, "then this..." He puts a finger over a strange knot tattoo at the nape of Kurt's neck, inked in varying shades of brown to look like wood. From a distance, Sebastian thought it was the face of a cat, but up close, it looks like a Celtic knot. "This weird, sort of feline looking…thingie."

Kurt chuckles. "You're close. It's a Cat Knot of Independence."

Sebastian nods. "This has something to do with Blaine, doesn't it?"

"Yup," Kurt says, staring down at the crushed cigarette, still burning, "but again, a story for another time."

Sebastian travels down his Dom's body, heading for his legs, and the massive thorny vines tattooed there.

"And these, I'd say you got these to protect you," Sebastian guesses. He puts a hand over one, noticing how there are no blank spaces between the thorns. If the vines were real, the thorns would tear through his palm and fingers.

"I'll give you that one, preppy," Kurt says. "I got them to remind me not to give myself away so easily. If a man wants to be with me, he has to be willing to work at it, climb the vines…risk getting hurt." Kurt chuckles ironically. "In fact, enjoying pain is probably a pre-requisite."

"I enjoy pain, Master," Sebastian says, humming along the gnarled branches. "And I'm not afraid of getting hurt." He hears Kurt moan beneath his lips, and he smiles at the sweet sound of him getting through to Kurt, breaking through the defenses, making his way through the thorns. But as he slowly creeps up towards Kurt's ass, his eyes catch sight of something on the outside of Kurt's right hip that makes his smile fade. "What…what is this?" Sebastian squints down at a tattoo he swears he's never seen before. He thought he knew every inch of Kurt's body, every section of skin. He may not know what the tattoos mean, but he has them memorized – placement, color, lines, dots, and shading. This one seems to have come out of nowhere.

Sebastian vaguely remembers over a week ago Kurt having a square of gauze taped in about the same place. Sebastian hadn't asked about it at the time, but Kurt offered that he'd run in to the corner of a table at the club, and Sebastian left it at that. But this tattoo was in the same place that bandage was, so the bandage had to be covering this. It's a collage of different things - musical notes, a lacrosse stick, a white rose with the petals bleeding off, a half-eaten chocolate bar, a Porsche emblem, all wrapped up in a string of Christmas lights and placed in the center of a geometrically drawn heart.

A heart that's shattered, or shattering.

This tattoo has more detail to it than some of Kurt's other tattoos, way more whimsy, and in many ways, it's much more heartbreaking.

It wasn't just a new tattoo. It was Sebastian's tattoo.

"Why did you get this, Master?"

"Because I felt like it. Fuck!" Kurt reaches for his pack of cloves, ready to pull out another cigarette.

"I mean, why now?" Sebastian asks. With feather-light touches, he traces over the raised edges of the tattoo. "Why would you…why now?"

"Well, you're going to leave me, aren't you?" Kurt asks, taking out a cigarette and putting it to his lips without lighting it.

"N-no, Master," Sebastian says, even though he knows it's a lie. It's the answer he'd like to give. He wants it to be true. He's been trying to figure out a way to make it true. "No, I…"

"Of course, you are, preppy." Kurt puts the fresh cigarette back in its pack before he's tempted to light it. "And do you know why you're going to leave? Because you're smart. You have a future."

Sebastian sighs in resignation. This isn't the first time they've had this discussion, but each time that follows becomes more heated than the last. Sebastian's afraid that one day, too soon, it'll turn into a screaming match, and Kurt will tell him to leave.

"You can come with me," Sebastian says. It's what he always says, and Kurt always shuts him down. But this time, Kurt just sort of melts into the bed.

"Yeah, right."

"What? You want to go back. You said so yourself."

"And what would I do when I got there, huh? Carry your books for you?"

"You could…" Sebastian searches for a selling point. He hadn't given this part enough thought, figuring he would come up with something in time; time he didn't have. Why does he even need to sell New York? Kurt's been there. He would be crazy not to want to go back. With the club scene and the night life, Kurt would fit in like a glove.

Then, in a snap, Sebastian comes up with something. "You could open another club."

Kurt raises his head and flips over, gazing up at Sebastian with an expression that makes Sebastian wonder if Kurt hasn't considered it, too. "Look, preppy, it's not that simple."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, I don't have a fat trust fund like you do."

"There's ways around that," Sebastian argues. "My dad's into real estate. I could help you, if you would just…"

Kurt puts a hand on Sebastian's thigh, squeezes gently, and Sebastian goes quiet.

"Sebastian, I know how things have been going with us, and I know what you're thinking." Kurt smiles wistfully. "I was your age, too, once, remember? I thought everything I wanted was possible. But you're going to have to face the fact that things don't work out between people like us, alright? And for all the cliché reasons – you're too young, you have your whole life ahead of you, we're too different, my life is here, blah, blah, blah."

"But, you're not listening. If you would-"

"Baby, just don't. Alright?" Kurt pleads, looking from Sebastian's eyes to his hand on Sebastian's leg. "Don't ruin what we have right now talking about things that can't ever happen."

"Come on, Kurt…"

Kurt hears his name on Sebastian's lips, and his face snaps up, his expression hard and stern, but his eyes don't match. They're not angry.

They're sad.

"If you can't handle that, preppy," Kurt says firmly, finally, "then you know where the door is."

"No," Sebastian says, his tone flat, utterly submissive, "I can handle that…Master."

"We have an adult relationship here." Kurt says. "I treat you like an adult, so act like an adult. Do you understand?"

"I understand, Master."

Kurt nods, not in approval, but acceptance. He doesn't want Sebastian to fight him on this, but a younger Kurt, still lurking somewhere inside his calloused, Dom exterior, wishes he would.

"So, you gonna let me up, or…" Kurt sits up, but Sebastian shoves hard on his shoulders, bringing Kurt down to the mattress.

"Not just yet, Master," Sebastian says, infusing his usual snarkiness back into a voice that's still obedient.

"You gonna hold me down, preppy?" Kurt smirks at the man straddling his hips, pinning him. "You think you can?"

"I wouldn't ever, Master." Sebastian leans down, lips whispering around the outline of Kurt's hip, around the tattoo he got for him. "I want you to stay and be with me because you want to be with me." Sebastian gives the skin along the joint a long lick, making Kurt moan through his teeth. "I want you to let me hold you and kiss you because you want me to." Sebastian looks up at Kurt through lowered lashes. "It doesn't matter what I want, Master, because I want what you want. And I promise…I'll do whatever you say."

"Keep doing what you're doing, preppy," Kurt says with barely any command in his voice. "Make me forget that…that this is ever going to end."

"As you wish, Master," Sebastian says, returning to the same spot of sensitive skin and swirling his tongue around it. He lies over Kurt's legs, his body keeping this gorgeous man, this untamable creature, trapped beneath him. He wants to concentrate his energy on Kurt, on giving him pleasure. He wants to clear his mind and enjoy this moment while he has it, with Kurt temporarily at his mercy. But in the back of his mind, thoughts intrude, bouncing in and out, of plans he's been making for the past three years - moving to New York, going to college. Plans that always stopped there because that's as far as he'd gotten. He isn't secure on a major (his father wants him to major in business, but his parents don't push, which he's always appreciated). He doesn't have a path picked out for down the road, after graduation. Theoretically, he can do whatever he wants, with or without college, but he doesn't know what that is yet.

The only thing he knows he wants for sure is Kurt.

So with the taste of Kurt's skin on his tongue, his cock heavy in his mouth, Sebastian starts concocting a new plan, one that isn't about him. For the first time, he's conspiring for someone else, maybe selfishly, but still. Aside from his own feelings, there's untapped potential in his midst.

He sees a bright future ahead of him, and it isn't his.

But in order to see it through, he has to disobey the one person he swore to serve.

That's exactly what he's doing, because this time, he's making a plan for Kurt.