ACITW AU CHAPTER 26B
Warm, soapy water sliding down Kurt’s skin…strong but tender fingers threading through his hair, cradling the back of his head after every pass, then following a trail down his neck and over his spine…the mouth on his - soft, coaxing, but not demanding…the body against his hard, muscular, but bending when he bends, molding where his body dips and curves, the caress of skin against skin intoxicating, sending his mind whirling, muting whatever voices remain of his past doubts and indecisions and replacing them with the soothing patter of the shower water hitting the tile, Sebastian’s breathy moans, and the best thing of all, Sebastian uttering his name over and over - Kurt, Kurt, Kurt - with two other equally powerful words strung along with it.
Please and yes.
Yes, Kurt. Please, Kurt. Oh, Kurt.
In this space and time, with Sebastian’s naked body pressed against his, trapping him just shy of the cool shower wall, kissing him endlessly, in no hurry to be done even though they have a big day ahead of them, Kurt realizes three things: he loves showering with Sebastian, he never wants to stop kissing him, and he could easily forget himself here in his boyfriend’s arms.
The water goes cold long before Sebastian considers them done, but it doesn’t deter him. He simply relocates Kurt away from the frigid spray, picking him up and moving him bodily when he doesn’t catch on right away to Sebastian’s non-verbal cues to take five steps to his right. Sebastian keeps kissing Kurt when the cold water collects up around their ankles in the bottom of the shower. He kisses Kurt when Kurt giggles, keeps kissing him when those giggles turn into moans, kisses him until Kurt is throbbing, hard, and entirely at Sebastian’s mercy.
Kurt sneaks a hand between them, reaching for both their erections, debating whose need required his attention first, but Sebastian grabs his wrist in one hand and pins it against the slick tile.
“Nu-uh,” he says, pressing Kurt’s wrist to the wall to keep him still. “I’ve got this.” Sebastian puts his hands around both their cocks together and starts to pump slowly, and Kurt, enraptured by this new sensation, throws his head back, conking it on the wall behind him.
“Ouch,” Kurt hisses but also laughs, laughing harder when Sebastian smiles and looks at him like he’s utterly ridiculous.
“Are you going to be okay?” Sebastian asks, not stopping for injury or concussion.
“I…I think…yeah…I’m ok--- aren’t we going to be late?” Kurt rambles, barely able to think with Sebastian’s body against him, their erections flush together, Sebastian’s strong hands managing to stroke them both.
“Did you want me to stop?” Sebastian speeds his hands and Kurt throws his head back again, smacking the tiles with a hollow thunk a second time. Sebastian curbs his laughter behind clenched teeth and bitten lips, trying not to kill the mood.
“Fuck, no…” Kurt groans, moving his hips to meet Sebastian’s pace. “No, don’t you dare…”
“I won’t, babe,” Sebastian promises, leaning in to kiss Kurt’s exposed neck. “I don’t think I could if I tried.”
Kurt whimpers and Sebastian groans, the two sounds mingling together as erotic as anything Sebastian is doing with his hands.
“Is this…” Kurt starts, pausing to swallow when the rippling sensation of his oncoming orgasm starts to overwhelm him, consume him, even as his wet skin shivers with the cold, “is this going to be a thing with us? Showering together and…and…”
“Is that a bad thing?” Sebastian asks, his voice failing as quickly as Kurt’s, his arms pumping faster when his muscles start to shake.
“No,” Kurt says, but his answer is only the ghost of a sound. It’s surrender, his body overfilling with a heat that has nowhere to go, threatening to tear him to pieces.
That’s the thought he’s left with when he cums over Sebastian’s hand. This boy is ripping him to pieces in the best ways and putting him back together differently, so that by the end of this summer, wherever it leads, he’ll never be the same or look at things the same way again.
It turns out to be way later than either of them anticipate by the time they leave the shower, but Kurt doesn’t regret a minute of it, even if he ends up developing hypothermia before noon. Neither does Sebastian regret it, if the way he whistles Mellencamp while he packs up their road food gives any indication, or the way he smiles to himself and chews on his lip in a manner very unlike the criminal chipmunk Kurt had long ago despised.
Sebastian had tossed on a pair of slim fit dark wash jeans and a pine green colored polo a shade off from his eyes, just different enough to make his irises pop. But Sebastian had called upon Kurt to dress sexy (that’s the way Kurt had heard it), so the effortless casual chic that Sebastian manages to get away with simply will not do for Kurt. Kurt searches through his luggage, laying out three potential outfits on the bed, standing back to examine each one, holding the pieces up to the sunlight to see how they differ in direct natural light and indirect natural light, until he comes up with the perfect ensemble - a pair of black trousers (form-fitting at the waist but more open and flow-y around his calves and ankles than his jeans, allowing air to circulate over his jellyfish sting since it doesn’t bother him much anymore and he’s getting tired of bandaging it), a white paisley button down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and a black vest to cinch the shirt in at the waist and break up all the white that will glow like a beacon beneath the summer sun.
He looks himself over in the mirror, twirling left and right to check for unsightly wrinkles and bunching, especially since he somehow forgot to hang up his more wrinkle-prone clothes when they arrived at the beach house. With everything they’d embarked on, the state of his clothes had somehow slipped his mind.
Kurt sighs. What has this boy done to him if he can’t remember to properly tend to his dress shirts and slacks?
Kurt tugs at the hem of his vest and smooths his hands down the front of his pants, ensuring that every conceivable inch of him looks pitch-perfect before he walks out to greet his boyfriend. Before he leaves the bedroom, he pockets his phone (Sebastian had told him to bring it because he knew that Kurt would want to take pictures…to quote a good friend, “wanky”). The only thing left for him to bring is the necktie. He eyes it lying on the bed, waiting for him.
Not a necktie, but a blindfold. Sebastian wants him to be blindfolded.
Sexy and blindfolded.
Whatever Sebastian has planned, it’s already turning out to be his best surprise yet.
Kurt quickly goes over the things they’ve done so far, trying to find a connection. Kurt knows that Sebastian is trying to woo him, but he’s going about it in an interesting way. He analyzes each activity individually, then lumps them together, searching for a common thread, but Kurt is still at a loss, so he decides to let it go for now and hope that the answer will come to him.
He picks Sebastian’s necktie up off the bed, winding it around his four fingers and sliding it in his pocket. Carrying it with him, knowing its intended purpose, feels as much of a thrill as trying to figure out why Sebastian wants him to wear it - and Kurt has come up with a plethora of tantalizing reasons, each one worthy of becoming the premise of a new fanfic when they get back to Ohio.
Kurt takes a deep breath, pulls himself straight, and walks down the hall to the living room, hoping he hits sexy out of the park.
Sebastian is busy packing the last of their snacks and drinks into a collapsible cooler when he sees Kurt strut into the living room. His hands stop fussing with the food in front of him, his jaw dropping an inch, and he tilts his head to the side.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Sebastian asks, and at the arcane tone in his voice, Kurt comes to a dead stop.
“Yeah…” Kurt answers, his defenses rising, his stomach coiling, preparing to defend his outfit choice. His heart drops a little, watching Sebastian’s teasing eyes appraise his clothing.
“Okay,” Sebastian says, crossing the room, looking Kurt over from his hair to his shoes, “now, I need to know…does any part of this ensemble belong to Puck?”
“No,” Kurt snaps, on his guard, not sure where Sebastian’s line of questioning would lead, but blaringly offended. Puck can be accused of many things, but being fashion forward is definitely not one of them. Not a single thing Kurt currently wore would be owned by a boy who doesn’t know McQueen from McDonald’s.
“Good,” Sebastian says, putting his hands on Kurt’s hips, careful to avoid wrinkling anything that Kurt might not appreciate getting wrinkled. “Then I don’t feel weird telling you that you look fabulous.”
Kurt loosens up in Sebastian’s grip, warming to his praise. Kurt loops his arms loosely around his boyfriend’s neck.
“Why, thank you, sir,” Kurt says, running his fingers through Sebastian’s damp hair. A couple of months ago, Kurt might have cringed at Sebastian’s contempt lately for drying his hair, since Kurt makes it a point to completely dry and style his hair before he gets ready for the day. But he likes this. He likes damp hair on Sebastian.
It reminds Kurt of being in the shower with him, of being naked with him, of being close to him.
“Ooo, sir,” Sebastian says, bending close to Kurt for a kiss, “I think I like the sound of that.”
“I bet,” Kurt quips back, slapping Sebastian lightly on the shoulder.
The kiss Sebastian places on Kurt’s mouth is the kind of gentle kiss they could share every day before school, between classes, when they meet each other at the door before family events - it’s a polite exchange, like a handshake…
…but when Sebastian dips his tongue between Kurt’s lips, it becomes a taste of things to come.
“Do you have your phone?” Sebastian asks, bringing a hand up to brush Kurt’s cheek, not moving his face too far away.
“Yeah…” Kurt says, leaving the single word open-ended, hoping that Sebastian will fill in more details.
Sebastian knows that Kurt is fishing for information, and smirks. He’s not biting.
“That’s all,” he says, “except…”
“Except…” Kurt copies, the air around them charged as Sebastian looms closer and Kurt hopes the next words out of his mouth are something close to Fuck this. We’re staying here so I can spend the next eight hours ravishing you.
Sebastian stands over him, bumping their foreheads together.
“Where’s the tie?” Sebastian asks quietly, patting down Kurt’s pockets, feeling the slight bulge in the front right one and stopping, his fingers massaging that spot.
“It looks like you found it,” Kurt says, raising an eyebrow, leaning into the fingers caressing his skin.
“May I?” Sebastian asks, his fingers crawling up the fabric and dipping shallowly into the pocket.
“Be my guest.”
Kurt stops breathing, his brain following the motion of Sebastian’s hand as his fingers skim over Kurt’s skin with the silky material of the pants pocket between them. Sebastian’s nails rake lightly over Kurt’s thigh, then slide inward, brushing close to Kurt’s cock. The material, tight around Kurt’s waist and upper thighs, translates the action of Sebastian’s hands over to other areas of Kurt’s skin as he scoops up the tie with his middle finger and pulls it from Kurt’s pocket.
“Now, you’re going to keep this on like a good boy,” Sebastian says, tying the necktie over Kurt’s eyes. Kurt sucks in a sharp breath as the striped fabric blocks out the light rather effectively. With the necktie over his eyes, Kurt is blind - surprisingly completely blind - and it hits him just how much he’s going to have to trust Sebastian to keep him safe, to guide him around, to not accidentally drop him off the side of a steep cliff. He has a second of hesitation when he thinks I don’t like this, I don’t like not having control, but then Sebastian puts his hands on Kurt’s shoulders, his lips kissing the nape of Kurt’s neck.
“Too tight?” he asks, the breath from his mouth heralding each kiss before he places it on Kurt’s skin..
“No, I…it’s just different,” Kurt answers, blinking his eyes behind the fabric, marveling at the total lack of light.
“If it makes you uncomfortable, I…”
“No,” Kurt says quickly, reaching up to cover Sebastian’s hand with his own. “No, I want to do this. I trust you.”
Sebastian becomes silent behind him, and Kurt wonders if he said something wrong, but then Sebastian turns Kurt around and crashes their lips together.
“Thank you,” he mouths over Kurt’s lips. Kurt feels the words; it’s not an audible statement. There’s a chance that it wasn’t meant for him to hear. Sebastian pulls his mouth away and puts his hands on Kurt’s shoulders again.
“Let’s get a move on,” Sebastian says, giving Kurt a tiny push and leading him from the living room to the kitchen, then through the front door and carefully, step by treacherous step, down to the carport. With his vision no longer a factor, Kurt focuses on everything he can hear and feel - Sebastian’s secure hands guiding him through the rooms, the cadence of their heels hitting the floor, the difference in air pressure and temperature when he leaves the house and exits into the outside air, the dull click of the Mustang door opening, the leather seats molding to his body when he sits down.
“Sit tight, sexy,” Sebastian says, helping Kurt with the latch to his seat belt. “I’ll be right back.” Sebastian’s voice, soft and smoky, is right beside Kurt’s ear when he reminds him, “No peeking.”
The door closes and Kurt fastens his seatbelt, waiting for Sebastian to return, which he does with lightning speed, putting what Kurt assumes is the cooler in the back seat before hopping into the driver’s seat, starting the Mustang, and getting them on their way.
They start their journey in silence, with Kurt determined to simply enjoy the ride and let whatever is going to happen happen (isn’t that supposed to be one of his mantras for this summer anyway?). He reclines in his seat and releases the curiosity eating at him into the indifferent arms of the universe, but it seems to boomerang back at him tenfold. He tries to tune it out, but it mounts inside him, piling up and piling up until he feels bloated. He suffers it for exactly five minutes more before he decides that an interrogation is in order.
“How far will we be driving?” Kurt asks this question as a test to see if Sebastian will answer, since whatever he says will literally mean nothing to Kurt as far as figuring out their destination.
“Far enough,” Sebastian responds with no other elaboration.
“Have you kidnapped many people before?”
“Funny,” Sebastian says, not commenting any further past that one word reply.
“You said we were rained out yesterday,” Kurt starts, building his questions on clues he already knows, “so that means we’re going to be outside, right?”
Kurt hears the music on the radio become louder and he sighs.
That’s the end of that, unless he wants to spend the rest of their road trip screaming out questions he’s not going to get the answers to. He might as well take a cheese grater to his vocal chords, and he can’t risk his voice that way. Kurt knows he’s not going to get any information out of his stubborn ass of a boyfriend, so he stops trying.
Kurt thinks the drive to wherever they are going will be boring with the tie covering his eyes, keeping him from guessing the location of Sebastian’s surprise (something Kurt feels is unnecessary since he has never been to North Carolina, knows nothing about North Carolina, and would have no hope of guessing where the hell they might end up, blindfold or no), but it’s actually quite enjoyable having no other choice than to feel the sun on his face, the breeze in his hair, and Sebastian’s musical selection for their ride - Dvorak’s New World Symphony - filling his ears. The only thing he wants that he can’t have is to see the expression on Sebastian’s face while they drive. Sebastian is certainly pleased with what he has planned for today - that’s plain for Kurt to tell.
They spend the rest of the trip not talking. Sebastian hums to the music, but Kurt is caught between wanting to nap, and sitting on the edge of his seat, bouncing up and down like a toddler on his first trip to Disneyland. After close to an hour’s drive, Kurt senses the car braking and feels them turn off the road. The Mustang dips as it leaves the flat asphalt and drives onto the dirt. The ground flattens out, but is marked with a few shallow potholes that Sebastian slows down to navigate. They drive straight for about a hundred yards and then abruptly park. Sebastian doesn’t say a word. Kurt hears Sebastian cut the Mustang’s engine, then his door opens and closes, and Kurt assumes that Sebastian got out of the car. Then Kurt’s door opens, and he feels Sebastian reach over his body to unbuckle his seatbelt, the scent of Ivory filling Kurt’s nose with Sebastian’s body so near.
“Be careful out here,” Sebastian warns, taking Kurt’s hand in his and helping him out of the Mustang. “The ground is a little uneven in spots.”
“So, we are outdoors,” Kurt cheers.
“Yes, we are,” Sebastian says, and Kurt can almost hear his eyes rolling. Sebastian closes the car door behind them. He holds Kurt’s hand and waits patiently while Kurt takes a first tentative step, the second and third steps more confident when he doesn’t plummet to the ground. Kurt knows there’s grass under his feet. Even with his shoes on, he can feel the blades brush against him, but he smells the pungent fragrance of freshly cut fescue warming beneath the North Carolina sun.
“Any bees this time around?” Kurt asks, purposefully being a noodge.
“Maybe one or two,” Sebastian answers, “but I don’t think they’ll bother us.”
“Any jellyfish?”
“No,” Sebastian laughs. “No jellyfish.” Sebastian’s arm wraps around Kurt’s waist when his toe hits a rock and he trips, diverting him toward a safer path.
“Anything else that might otherwise try to kill and/or maim us?” Kurt asks, regaining his balance in the shelter of Sebastian's arms and continuing on.
“Depends on your definition of kill and/or main.”
They walk quite a ways more than Kurt expects. Around them in the distance, Kurt hears people laughing and talking, but for another sound that interjects from time to time, a sort of whoosh that erupts in short bursts, he can’t make out clearly what anyone is saying.
He does hear the word basket. He knows that for sure.
A picnic, maybe? But then why would that be a surprise, unless the Smythes came to the house early and they’re meeting up here? Feasible, but then why the blindfold?
Unless it’s that wedding Sebastian keeps joking that his mother is planning for them. Kurt pictures it in his head - Sebastian taking off the blindfold with a flourish to reveal a huge white canopy stretched over rows of portable folding chairs, each one filled with a member of the Smythe entourage that Kurt has yet to meet, including, bizarrely enough, Jeremiah from the country club and Max, covered in glitter and looking particularly pissed off, along with his dad and the whole of the New Directions, dressed in the costumes they wore at Nationals. The image is so patently idiotic that Kurt barks out a laugh just as he and Sebastian stop walking, and even with the blindfold covering his eyes, he feels people looking at him.
“O-kay…” Sebastian says in response to Kurt’s outburst, but aside from a chuckle, he doesn’t say anything else about it. ”I’m Sebastian Smythe,” he hears his boyfriend continue. “I have a reservation.”
“Oh, yes,” an older man’s voice responds. It’s a gruff voice, probably roughened by years of cigar smoking (which Kurt can smell on the breeze when it changes direction), but it’s a cheerful voice. He seems genuinely happy to meet them. That’s something that Kurt is beginning to appreciate about the people they’ve encountered so far on this trip. Everyone seems so kind, so open, so accepting, so come-as-you-are. “You have a reservation for two at noon.” Kurt hears the man laugh, as a result of seeing Kurt in his blindfold, he thinks. “First timer, eh?” the man asks, and that more or less confirms it.
“Yup,” Sebastian says, kneading Kurt’s shoulder muscles, noticing them tighten up before Kurt does.
“Well, you’re going to love it,” the man assures Kurt, patting him on the upper arm. “Right this way, gentlemen.”
Sebastian’s hands on Kurt’s body leading him around become necessary to keep Kurt moving. Kurt likes surprises as much as he dislikes surprises, and as they get closer to whatever it is that Sebastian is taking him to, Kurt becomes reluctant, questioning if he really wants to know what Sebastian has planned that takes place in the middle of a field of grass and requires a blindfold to get him there.
“Breathe, babe,” Sebastian says, taking Kurt by the elbow and edging him closer to something. He puts Kurt’s hands down on a surface that’s hard and smooth, but knotted. It feels like wicker, but if that’s what it is, it’s the largest thing made of wicker he’s ever felt. “Step up.” Kurt feels around with his foot for a ledge to step up on, but when he can’t find one, Sebastian is there, putting a hand beneath his knee to help him find his way. Kurt steps down on a solid floor and pulls himself up, following the surface beneath his hands, his fingers hitting something that feels like rope along the way. He hears Sebastian walk up behind him, then the sound of a door swinging shut and a lock clicking closed.
“Okay, are we ready to go?” the man asks, keeping his question vague, not giving anything away, in cahoots with Sebastian’s plan.
“Yup,” Sebastian says, patting Kurt’s hand.
“I…I guess, yes,” Kurt replies when he notices the quiet and realizes both men are waiting for him to respond.
“My name’s Roland, by the way,” the man says, “so if you need anything, just yell.” Then the man laughs, long, throaty, and way too amused with all of this. “Let’s do this.” Roland does something, and Kurt hears that whoosh, but it’s right over his head. Then they’re rising…rising! Lifting off the ground and rising into the air!
“Sebastian?” Kurt asks, gripping tighter with his hands. He feels Sebastian’s fingers behind his head, untying the knot and pulling off the blindfold.
The white sunlight hits Kurt’s eyelids and it takes a few minutes for Kurt to adjust to the brightness, but instead of taking the time he needs to become accustomed to it again, he rushes to blink. He needs to see where they are. He needs to make sure they’re not doing what he suspects they’re doing.
The floor lurches and that does it. Kurt’s eyes fly open, his head panging with the stunning burst of light flooding his eyes, but he can see mostly where he is. His jaw drops, watching the world beneath them fall away. People gather on the ground to watch them take flight while other balloons, deflated in the grass, wait for their turn to rise into the air. Kurt snaps his head up to look above them, seeing a burner spitting flame into the gigantic mouth of a bulbous, rainbow-colored hot air balloon.
Kurt’s eyes dart from Sebastian’s grinning face to the face of the older man - Roland, barely containing himself - then back to Sebastian. Sebastian’s smile for Kurt not only reaches his eyes, but lights them entirely, overcome by the enormity of this event he was able to pull off.
Kurt wants to congratulate him. He wants to kiss him and hug him and thank him for his thoughtfulness. Kurt knows he tried, he’s been trying this whole time, but when he opens his mouth, hysteria speaks for him instead and he stammers, “Sh-shit! Sebastian! Wha--- what the hell?”
Sebastian’s smile doesn’t just disappear, it dies, and in its place Kurt sees confusion, anger, embarrassment, disappointment…and hurt. But all of those are erased immediately and replaced with a solid mask of exasperation.
“Holy fuck, Kurt!” Sebastian parries back, though he knows he should probably comfort his terrified boyfriend. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights!?”
“O-ok!” Kurt stutters in a voice that sounds like it’s teetering on the verge of full-scale panic. “I won’t tell you! It’ll…it’ll be my secret!”
Sebastian shakes his head, his chest heaving with sarcastic laughter.
“When were you planning on telling me that you were afraid of heights?”
“I don’t know!” Kurt cries, choking on his anger when the wind blows through their basket and the simmering flame above them flickers. (They can’t go out like that, can they? he thinks. They’re not like candles…they don’t just blow out…do they?) “When were you going to tell me about all of your deathly fears? The subject never came up, alright!”
“This is great,” Sebastian says, leaning against the side of the basket and staring up to the sky, as if looking to a higher power for help. “This is just super.”
Kurt’s whole body shakes and he swallows hard.
“You don’t get to be angry at me.” He tries to take his hand off the basket to point at Sebastian accusingly, but he can’t make his hand let go. “I know what’s going on here,” Kurt says as he breathes heavily, bordering on hyperventilating. “You don’t like me at all, do you? You’re trying to get rid of me. You drove me all the way out here to get rid of the body!”
“If I wanted to kill you, I sure as hell wouldn’t drop you out of a balloon!” Sebastian growls. “I’d strangle you with my fucking bare hands!”
Kurt hears Roland chuckle, lighting the burner and taking them higher despite Kurt’s freak out.
“So, what the fuck are we doing up here then?” Kurt whines.
“We’re up here because I’m trying to do something fucking romantic for you, God dammit!” Sebastian retaliates, crossing the small space to confront Kurt on the level.
“Giving me a heart attack is something romantic?” Kurt screeches, hands gripping the edge of the basket, fists trembling like mad, knuckles going from white to nearly transparent. “Putting my life in danger is romantic?”
The laugh that sputters from Sebastian’s lips makes Kurt want to rear back and slap him across the face.
“You’re afraid of heights?” Sebastian chortles, repeating it again incredulously, leaning back as he laughs. “You’re afraid of heights? What kind of imbecile puts ride in a hot air balloon on their bucket list if they’re fucking afraid of heights!?”
“The kind that…wait...” Kurt’s eyes narrow, scrutinizing the boy in front of him who at least has sense to look guilty at being caught. “You…you did go through my phone! I knew it!”
“You knew nothing!” Sebastian retorts, turning his head away, eyes searching out the horizon to calm himself down, to eradicate his guilt.
“I did!” Kurt argues. “I did!”
“No,” Sebastian contends, “because if you knew, you definitely would have said something. You’re not a big one for keeping your mouth shut.”
“Well, I was suspicious,” Kurt compromises, losing none of his ire. He isn’t exactly pissed at Sebastian. He’s more curious, but he also wants to know if invading his privacy is going to be a habit with him. “But, why would you go through my phone again? Did you think I was texting…”
“No!” Sebastian cuts in with conviction enough that Kurt knows he’s telling the truth. No, Sebastian didn’t think Kurt had been texting Blaine. “That first day we were here, I woke up and you were gone. I thought you left. I thought you called…” Sebastian has a name on his lips, but he bites his tongue and chews around it. It only takes a single flicker from his eyes to tell Kurt who.
Julian.
Sebastian thought Kurt had called Julian to come get him.
On the one hand, Kurt wants to be sympathetic, but on the other hand, God, how infuriating! There’s something there - something between those two that shows itself in tiny ways, in ever so subtle and sometimes not subtle ways, but Sebastian won’t explain it to him.
But that’s not the issue now.
“Why would I leave?” Kurt asks. He can’t help feeling hurt - after everything he’s been through, after everything Sebastian has put him through, even before today, and how far they’ve come, now that Kurt realizes…
“I don’t know,” Sebastian says - old, crumbled walls inching their way back up around him to protect him. “Why would you stay? Maybe you thought…”
“What did I think?” Kurt asks, talking over Sebastian, not hearing the rest of his reason, annoyed that Sebastian would tell Kurt what he thought without even asking him. “I came all the way out here to be with you! What did you think…”
“I thought that you thought this was a mistake,” Sebastian butts in. “That coming here with me was a mistake. And I’ll tell you Kurt, it slayed me. It slayed me because…”
“A mistake?” Kurt gasps, letting go of the basket, forgetting about his fears and about falling with the brutality of that one word barreling through his heart. “Don’t you think you should have talked to me if that’s how you thought I felt? Jesus Christ, why is everyone putting words in my mouth all the time, huh? How come no one tells me how they really…”
“I’ve never had to explain my feelings to anyone,” Sebastian continues, regardless of Kurt’s constant interruptions. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have them, but no one seemed to care. Shit! I didn’t care. At least, I thought I didn’t care until you and I started…”
“I promised I’d give us a chance.” Kurt argues. “Not just for one day and one night. I’m in this for the long haul because I realized that…”
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to ruin this. I didn’t know how I was supposed to tell you that I…”
“…regardless of everything, regardless of our past, regardless of my past, that I…”
They come to a full stop midsentence and stare at one another, the air at 2,000 feet completely silent for the first time since the balloon went aloft.
Kurt stares at Sebastian.
Sebastian stares at Kurt.
Roland stares at both of them, mildly amused, but neither boy notices him anymore.
Sebastian pulls himself to his full height, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Say it.”
Kurt scoffs, offended by the audacity of Sebastian to make that command.
“You say it.”
Sebastian rolls his eyes.
“Why should I? You obviously don’t if you can’t say it!”
“Well, you can’t say it either!”
“It’s not as easy for me as it is for you!”
“It’s not easy for me!”
“Why? Because you can’t love me?”
“Because I didn’t think that I could fall in love again so soon, and it’s terrifying!” Kurt confesses, losing steam, feeling like he’s drowning in these emotions that tend to gobble him up and spit him out without warning. This back and forth arguing, bouncing between admissions, saying things but leaving them unsaid, is maddening. “But I did, Sebastian…and I do.” Kurt looks into Sebastian’s eyes, at the abundance of dynamic greens combined in his irises - moss and sea and juniper - as convoluted as the boy himself, lit ablaze by their arguing and Sebastian’s rebounding cockiness, but reflecting his need for Kurt’s reassurance. Sebastian, independent and strong, but he needs Kurt. He needs Kurt to tell him. “Sebastian, I…”
Sebastian slaps a hand over Kurt’s mouth, and Kurt glares at him in surprise.
“You jerk---“ he mumbles.
Sebastian smirks at Kurt’s adorable umbrage.
“I love you, Kurt.”
End of argument.
That’s all he has to say.
Kurt reaches up and pulls Sebastian’s hand down from his mouth.
“I love you, Sebastian.”
Kurt watches Sebastian’s face change - his eyes in particular, projecting his misery and doubt, smile again.
“Yeah?” He puts his hands on Kurt’s shoulders, runs them down his arms, and then takes Kurt’s hands in his. “Well, just remember who said it first.”
Kurt almost rolls his eyes but Sebastian doesn’t let him do anything but be kissed - kissed above the earth, floating among the clouds, up over the world where nothing can touch them. It doesn’t even matter to Kurt that other balloons are hovering nearby, each one full of people watching them, or that poor Roland is stuck next to them in this confined basket while they make-out.
Life is made up of moments - big moments and little moments. Some moments are a curse, others are a blessing.
Kurt’s summer has been full of moments - some heartbreaking, some annoying, and some renewing.
This…this here…in Sebastian’s arms…high in the sky, knowing that someone loves him again…this is a moment for Kurt.
Sebastian releases him, kissing across his cheek as he turns him around, ignoring the cheers from the onlookers around them. He aims Kurt’s gaze out toward the horizon, where the land stretches out beneath them, the blue sky rises up above them, and everything in front of them is like the future - beautiful and bright.
“So, now that the fear of plunging to a painful and untimely death is over, what do you think?” Sebastian asks, hooking his chin onto Kurt’s shoulder, his attention only partially occupied by the view before him. Mostly he looks at Kurt, awaiting his reaction.
Kurt turns his head and smiles, looking into Sebastian’s eyes when he answers.
“It’s better than I could have ever thought possible.”
***
The drive back to the beach house takes half the time than it normally would with Sebastian disregarding speed limits left and right and Kurt only partially belted into his seat, licking stripes up and down Sebastian’s neck, biting on his earlobe and palming over his cock.
“God, Kurt,” Sebastian moans, slamming on his brakes at the last minute and stopping his car before he blows through one of the few red lights on this strip of road. “We’re going to…oh God…we’re going to get into an accident, you keep doing that.”
“Do you want me to stop?” Kurt whispers, deftly unbuttoning the top button of Sebastian’s jeans with the fingers of his right hand and slipping it inside while scratching lightly up the back of his neck with his left hand.
“Not a chance,” Sebastian moans, dropping the car into gear a second before the light turns green, sending his Mustang flying down the asphalt, tires squealing, leaving a Chevy Malibu and a Dodge Charger in his dust.
Sebastian pulls into the carport with no other desire than to have Kurt and have him now. The Mustang barely comes to a stop before Kurt unbuckles his seat belt - not that it was restricting much more than his right ankle the whole drive back. Sebastian turns in his seat, grabs Kurt by the shoulder, and pulls him in for a kiss. Kurt laughs at Sebastian’s impatience, as if it isn’t a match to his own. The car isn’t even in park, Sebastian’s foot pressing down the brake pedal the only thing keeping them from driving full speed through the wall. Sebastian grabs Kurt around the waist and kisses him hard, crushing their mouths together, fumbling with his left hand to put the car in park and kill the engine.
Sebastian nearly drags Kurt out of the car through the driver’s side door, refusing to let go of him, and Kurt, his head spinning from kiss after kiss, his body yearning to be savored and devoured, wonders will it be now? Sebastian said he wanted to go slow, but struggling with the door handle to get them inside the house, Sebastian kisses Kurt as if the secret to eternal happiness lies somewhere along the seam of his lips. Kurt unbuttons his vest and Sebastian slips his hands underneath, running light nails down his back. He mumbles I love you after I love you along the curve of Kurt’s mouth. He’s smiling - Kurt can feel it wherever Sebastian’s mouth touches.
It has to be now.
What else could there be for them to do? What other steps are there for them to take?
They make it up the stairs - luckily without falling off the side of the dune - into the house (they both reach for the doorknob at the same time, but as Sebastian has the keys, he won), through the kitchen, tripping over one another, staggering their steps as they make their way to the living room. Stopping at the first flat wall they come across, Sebastian pins Kurt up against it and kisses him more, unable to stop now that this gate has been opened.
“Say it again,” Sebastian pleads, pausing for a breath.
“Say please,” Kurt teases, letting Sebastian claim his mouth over and over, till his lips are red and swollen and his cheeks hurt from smiling.
“Please, Kurt. Say it again?” Sebastian asks with a slight edge in response to Kurt’s kidding.
Sebastian looks into Kurt’s face, waiting for the words, green eyes begging, something they aren’t accustomed to doing.
“It again,” Kurt repeats with a laugh. Sebastian looks furious, but he tickles Kurt beneath the armpits, making him yelp.
“Please, Kurt,” Sebastian whines but sweetly, “I need…I need to hear it.”
Kurt watches Sebastian’s face slowly fall, and Kurt can’t put him through this torment any longer.
“I love you, Sebastian,” Kurt says, enunciating every word and following it with a chaste kiss, making sure there’s no mistake. “I love you, I love you, I love you…”
“Good,” Sebastian says with a nod and a laugh, “because I love you, too.”
Sebastian kisses Kurt again, these kisses urgent, hungry, meant to light a fire in Kurt’s belly that would be damn near impossible to extinguish in any way except one. Kurt rolls his head on his neck, offering it up so Sebastian can kiss, suck, mark to his heart’s content. Sebastian’s lips against Kurt’s throat cause him to moan, and he smiles, drunk from the scrape of Sebastian’s teeth on his skin, the alternating way he nibbles and sucks shooting sparks like Roman candles firing straight to his groin.
“I love you,” Kurt mutters, smiling and laughing and moaning beneath the reach of Sebastian’s tongue. “I love you, I love you, I…”
The words wedge in his throat as his eyes lock on to an unexpected face staring at them from the living room.
It’s his eyes - those heart-stopping, criminally seductive bedroom eyes - that Kurt sees first. Then the rock star smile. It seems that every Smythe sibling has a signature quirk to their lips. This one can bring anyone to their knees.
Well, maybe not Kurt. Not anymore.
He’s wearing black pants that look painted on, and he wears the hell out of them, to be honest.
Except Kurt pictures the way they might look on Sebastian, the way they would hug his every muscle, how glorious it would be to peel them down his legs slowly...
“Julian?” Kurt meant it to sound like a curse, an expletive, he had intended on turning that name into the vilest of four-letter words, but Sebastian finds a sensitive spot on Kurt’s neck and licks it, and Kurt gasps the name on accident. Julian’s smile curls devilishly at the edges, the words, “I thought so” dancing on his tongue, his hedonistic sensibilities satisfied, but Sebastian jerks his head back, glaring at Kurt with a look of such boundless pain that had Kurt actually seen it, it would have broken him.
“Really, Kurt?” Sebastian growls. Pressed against the wall, Kurt sees Sebastian from the corner of his vision, green eyes flashing dark with lust clouded by anger - the look of a boy stricken by the sting of a scar torn from a wound too quickly. Kurt wants to examine that pain, but there are other things that need to be dealt with before that. “Are you fucking kidding me with that sh---“
Kurt grabs Sebastian’s chin in his grip and wrenches his head to the side. For the first time Sebastian sees the intruder who has poached his boyfriend’s attention. He snarls, slamming his fist into the wall above Kurt’s head.
“Julian!”
“Hello, baby brother…gorgeous…” Julian addresses them, his smooth voice slicing into their midst, swiftly and shamelessly destroying the promise that Sebastian’s kisses and Kurt’s touches, coupled by their repeated declarations of love, had created. “Did you guys miss me?”