Glee Fic #1: The One Where Sebastian and Kurt Are Together
Title: The One Where Sebastian and Kurt Are Together
Author: Myrna1_2_3
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Sebastian
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Future!Fic. Sebastian and Kurt are together, it’s five years after college graduation, and we check in to see what’s up.
Disclaimer: Not-not-mine
Spoilers: Everything that’s happened in the show except for things that I didn’t want to have happen in the show.
Sebastian walked in the front door of the apartment he shared with his boyfriend, closing his eyes and blissfully inhaling the amazing aromas coming from the kitchen. Lucky man, Sebastian thought, and it wasn’t until he walked past the impeccably set dining room table that he remembered it was First Taste Friday. He’d left early that morning or he would have been given a reminder and at least foregone daydreaming about a lazy Friday night.
He stepped into the kitchen and had to grin at the organized chaos that greeted him. There were three pots already on the stove-top, two prep-stations in various stages of prep, and a cheesecake cooling on a rack. Kurt was singing along to the blaring soundtrack of the musical Rachel Berry was currently work shopping; something about veterinarians during World War II. War Horse meets South Pacific had been Rachel’s horrifying description.
“Remember this the next time you want to ask me if I’d rather be performing on Broadway,” Kurt had said as they watched the train wreck that was the first walk-through.
Sebastian had long since stopped worrying about whether or not Kurt was happy with the way things had turned out. By the time Kurt transferred to NYU, he was so in love with New York City, Sebastian was sure he could be happy as a septic tank repair man so long as he was repairing septic tanks in his beloved NYC.
As it was, Kurt had taken a small, almost hobby-like catering business and, in the five years since they’d graduated, built it into a full-service event planning operation. Between Rachel Berry’s connections in the theater world and Sebastian’s ties in the financial world, Kurt had been handed a steady clientele at the beginning of his venture, and now his jobs were booked out months in advance. More than one bride had changed her wedding date when it was discovered Kurt Hummel was unavailable for the event. He was starting to be featured in design magazines and had even made a few television appearances about cooking for, designing for or simply hosting fabulous parties.
When he first started catering, Kurt would invite a few friends over once in awhile to try new dishes he was thinking about incorporating into his repertoire. Somehow, the get-togethers turned into a formal, monthly obligation, with detailed reviews expected from the guests discussing their favorite appetizers, entrees and desserts.
It was an eclectic crowd-some friends of Kurt’s from high school-Rachel, Blaine Anderson, Santana Lopez; Sebastian’s college roommate Jake and a couple of buddies from their softball league; a few of the blue-haired women Kurt had worked for over the years who were perpetually trying to adopt him. Husbands, wives and significant others would bring the tally to fourteen, sometimes sixteen, which was the most their dining room table could handle.
And even though guests were expected to pull their weight with foody reviews, it was still a hot ticket. When Sebastian’s friend Eli was transferred to London and had to give up his spot, Sebastian was hit up by a handful of people looking to be added to the First Taste Friday guest list. “They just want you on retainer to do their next party at cost,” Sebastian had said as Kurt was sifting through potential replacements.
“Hmmm, then maybe we should pick someone we can trade services with. Allen has an apartment in Paris…”
“But he brings that fucking yippy dog everywhere.”
“True,” Kurt said. “Plus have you seen what that man eats? Fried on a stick is a food group as far as he’s concerned.”
“There’s an off-color joke somewhere in there, I’m just not sure where,” Sebastian said. “How about Neil-can’t hurt to have an orthopedic surgeon on call, right?”
Kurt shook his head. “No, remember, he slept with Albert when Albert and Cal were on a break.”
“Oh, that’s right. How about Eric?”
“He slept with Rachel when he and Charlie were on a break.” Kurt had frowned at the list of names in front of him. “Our friends are kind of slutty.”
“That’s why we like them,” Sebastian had said. But they ended up going with the decidedly unslutty , Mr. Lubouwski who owned the small store-front Kurt rented in Chelsea. He and his wife were in their sixties, and certainly not members of any social elite, but boy did they know good food. Some of Kurt’s favorite recipes were from the duct-taped cookbook Mrs. Lubouwski’s mother gave her daughter on her wedding day.
Sebastian sighed now, anticipating the long, hectic night ahead, and set his laptop down with a thump that finally alerted Kurt to his presence.
Kurt looked up from the mirepoix he was dicing and smiled at him. “Hey, I didn’t hear you come in,” he said. “How was your day?” He leaned over the counter for a kiss which Sebastian was happy to oblige.
“Great until I realized it was First Taste Friday,” he said. “Why can’t we ever have a boring night in front of the TV?”
Kurt snorted at that and went back to chopping celery. “Your dinner last night was Wheat Chex swimming in beer, which you ate standing over the kitchen sink wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.”
Sebastian’s shrug conveyed he couldn’t possibly understand what that had to do with anything. “You’re welcome, by the way. The boxers were a treat for you.”
Kurt spared him a glance. “I believe my appreciation was appropriately conveyed,” he said.
Sebastian laughed. “So who’s coming tonight?” he asked. “Plaine, of course.”
Kurt cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t look up from his dicing. “Yes, he is,” he said. “With Jeffrey.”
Sebastian groaned. “Great, the only gay guy in NYC more generic than Blanderson.”
Kurt glared at Sebastian, motioning at him with the carving knife in a gesture that looked casual to the unlearned eye, but Sebastian knew a threat when he saw one. “You are to be on your best behavior,” Kurt warned. “This is the first boyfriend in the last four that I can tolerate-you’re not messing this up for me.”
“The last time we went out, he spent, like, five hours extolling the virtues of his new blender.”
“Blender/juicer combo,” Kurt corrected, lips quirking up at the corners.
“Five. Hours,” Sebastian repeated slowly.
“Make nice,” Kurt said. “Blaine could still be with Jerome Have-I-Told-You-About-My-Cats.”
“Oh God,” Sebastian said, realizing it really could be worse. “Or Bill I-Never-Met-A-Pastrami-Sandwich-I-Didn’t-Take-A-Picture-Of-With-My-Cell-Phone-Here-Look-At-Them-Look-At-Them-Look-at-Them!”
Kurt grimaced. “We really should try to learn their last names,” he said.
“Who has that kind of time?” Sebastian said, wandering off to change his clothes. He checked his Blackberry, fired off a couple of emails then returned to the kitchen.
As Sebastian helped himself to a beer, Kurt said, “So, guess what?” A warm flush colored his cheeks.
“Pleated pants are making a comeback this fall,” Sebastian guessed.
Kurt set down his knife, all playfulness abruptly disappearing. “There are some things we don’t joke about in this household,” he said sternly.
Sebastian laughed, leaning back against the kitchen counter and eyeing Kurt with an exaggeratedly shrewd look on his face. “Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re wearing your saucy, good-news face, so it can’t be that another of the Gay Brigade are heading upstate to raise kids or goats or whatever.”
“We’ve gone a record three days without one of those announcements,” Kurt said dryly.
“So tell me what,” Sebastian said.
Kurt smiled, eyes shining with excitement. He took a deep breath and said, “I got the Today show.”
Sebastian stood arrow straight, gaping at Kurt for a few beats before saying, “Wait, wait, I thought Dowdy Middle got the job.”
Kurt had been in the running as the Today Show’s new style guru, but just the week before, they’d learned the job had been offered to a woman Kurt had dubbed “Dowdy Middle” for her appeal to similarly middle-aged, Midwest, middling viewers.
“She did,” Kurt said. “And she must have gone out this weekend to celebrate, because last Saturday she was pulled over with a BAC twice the legal limit and a 19 year-old “escort” in the car with her.”
“No fucking way!” Sebastian said, his heart starting to race. “Oh my God!” he shouted, scooping Kurt up into a bear hug. “This is so awesome!” he said. They spun around a few times, then Sebastian set Kurt down, keeping him in place with two hands gripping his shoulders. Sebastian shook him excitedly. “We are going to be so fucking rich!” He planted a wet kiss on Kurt’s mouth, both of them laughing into it.
“I know!” Kurt said. “Do you realize we are never going to have call ahead for a table in this town again? Ever!”
“I told you we needed to wait for this apartment to free up,” Sebastian said. “When People Magazine comes to take our picture for the 50 Most Sexy…”
“Beautiful,” Kurt corrected.
“Whatever,” Sebastian dismissed. “We’re both. When they come to take our picture, we’re going to be leaning against the desk in front of that massive living room window with the whole city behind us! It’ll look like a fucking movie backdrop!”
“It will look fantastic,” Kurt said. “We’ll look fantastic.”
“When do they put that issue together?” Sebastian wondered aloud. “No way are they referring to me as a junior partner. Barker’s going to have to pony up the full partnership before that.”
“They can just say financier,” Kurt assured him.
“That makes me sound unemployed,” Sebastian said.
“Hedge fund wunderkind?” Kurt suggested with a grin. An article in the Times had referred to a highly offended Sebastian as such in an article after his first wildly successful year at Barker Kauffman. Sebastian hadn’t been upset at the wunderkind moniker, merely that the Times hadn’t actually mentioned his name.
“You know what this means?” Sebastian said. “We won’t have to borrow the money to buy into the partnership. Oh man, we are so home free!”
“No mingling with the riff raff at Barney’s,” Kurt said with a dreamy sigh. “They’re going to bring the suits to me. I’ll get my pick. I’m going to be wooed by Armani and McQueen, Bloomingdales and Saks. Wooed ! Oh my God, Anna Wintour is going to use her cold, bony fingers to personally dial my cell to influence my Fall Must-Haves and my Spring Can’t-Live-Withouts!.”
Sebastian laughed. “Burt and Carole are going to freak,” he said. “My mom’s going to freak!” He thought to himself for a few seconds. “Aw shit, and there are like, a hundred and eighty photos on my Facebook page of my dad wearing Bermudas with black socks. First scandal for sure.”
Kurt laughed with him. “Well, we can’t say anything until it’s officially announced next week, so…”
“What?” Sebastian said, then whined, “Kurt! You can’t tell me something like this when we’re expecting a houseful of people and then expect me to keep my mouth shut. Especially when there’s beer.”
“So don’t drink,” Kurt said.
That just made Sebastian whine more. “You can’t expect me to not drink when I’m spending the evening with Jeffrey-It-Slices-It-Dices-It-Chops-It-Blends!”
“Don’t forget Juices,” Kurt said with a smile.
Sebastian closely eyed Kurt and said, “Have you told Rachel?” If Rachel knew, Sebastian wouldn’t have to worry because she’d blab way before he ever would.
“No,” Kurt said pointedly, obviously following Sebastian’s thought process.
So Sebastian wasn’t completely out of options. “Is she coming tonight?”
Kurt pursed his lips, looking slightly less certain. ”Yes,” he admitted.
Sebastian grinned with relief. Rachel would take one look at Kurt’s face and know something was up. Those two had a weird, Wonder Twins thing going that Sebastian didn’t even try to understand. Hell, he was half surprised Rachel hadn’t already sensed a disturbance in the universe and transported herself over to investigate.
Kurt rolled his eyes at Sebastian’s smug look. “Go open a couple of bottles of red,” he said.
“All right, but I’m not bringing up the good stuff for this motley crew.”
“Honey,” Kurt said, sounding disappointed, and Sebastian paused for a scolding. Instead, Kurt just gently patted Sebastian’s cheek. “You don’t know which ones are the good ones.”
An hour later, most of their guests had arrived and were enjoying a glass of wine with duck breast and bacon-pineapple appetizers. Kurt buzzed Blaine and Jeffrey in, then cocked his head a minute later when a knock sounded. He opened the door to find Blaine grinning hugely and bouncing on his heels.
Kurt quirked an eyebrow at him for knocking in the first place and now just standing there in the hall. “Hey,” Blaine said, “You don’t mind making room for one more, do you?”
Kurt’s overly polite what-choice-do-I-have-but-we’ll-speak-of-this-later smile morphed into actual delight when Blaine proudly pulled a familiar face into the doorway.
“Mike Chang!” Kurt said with a laugh. “What are you doing here? Come in, come in!”
Mike looked as delighted as Kurt, his eyes going wide in surprise. He laughed as he said, “Oh my God, Kurt, you look fantastic!” He pulled Kurt into a massive hug, laughed again, then pushed Kurt away, hands on his shoulders to take another look. “I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “Pictures don’t do it justice, man! Artie said you looked great when he saw you in February, but wow! You look amazing!”
The world lurched and slowed its rotation for a beat, like it always did when Sebastian had the staggering realization that he’d actually forgotten for a moment. He did the math in his head and figured they’d last seen Mike a year and a half ago. Finn had hosted an impromptu New Directions get-together over the Christmas holiday when most of them were in Lima visiting family.
Kurt would have been just two months out from the last chemo treatment.
Kurt ducked his head with modesty Sebastian knew was utterly false. “Yes, yes, I’ve been restored to my former glory,” he said, preening.
It was quiet for a few beats, not yet uncomfortable but edging that way.
“So what are you doing in New York?” Sebastian asked, then offered a guess. “A new show?” Mike was a choreographer, based in LA, but he and his dancer wife travelled wherever his or her latest job took them.
“Not a new show, but a new gig,” Mike said. “I’m taking a teaching position at The Broadway Dance Center.”
“That’s amazing!” Kurt said, voice pitching high in his excitement. “I didn’t even know you were thinking about teaching!”
Mike grinned. “Allison’s pregnant,” he said. “Jack’s starting kindergarten in another year-we felt like it was time to put down some roots and the Dance Center came calling, like, 15 minutes after we found out Alli was pregnant again. Seemed like fate, you know?”
Kurt’s eyes were enormous. “Oh my God,” he said as realization dawned, then added in a sing-song voice, “This means apartment hunting!”
Rachel Berry burst through the door a few minutes later, probably watching from across the street to ensure enough of a crowd to maximize the drama of her arrival. Her divaesque entrance melted to genuine happiness at the sight of Mike and his employment news.
“So is Santana coming?” Mike asked. “Blaine says she’s a regular too.”
“She’s at some Legal Defense fund raiser,” Sebastian said, not that he usually knew Santana’s whereabouts, but she’d hit him up for a sizeable donation when he and Kurt declined the invitation.
“Aww, poor baby,” said Jeffrey. “Should we feel bad about our feast when she’s spending the night with rubber chicken and cheap Chardonnay ?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes, feeling no sympathy for the absent Santana. She wrangled an invite to dinner at their place at least once a week by passively aggressively texting Kurt things like, “Will tuna taste ok in Italian hmbrgr hlpr?” Sebastian knew the texts were passive aggressive because he’d caught her more than once sending them from the lobby of their apartment building.
“Why don’t you just show up at the door with an empty plate and a napkin tied around your neck?” Sebastian had grumbled once, hauling her into the elevator with him.
“Not my fault Hummel likes to get his Happy Homemaker on,” she’d nonsensically replied.
She always ended up with a full belly and a few Tupperware containers to take home.
“We should enroll her in a cooking class,” Sebastian said one night, watching a Yankees game on DVR because Santana had commandeered their TV set to watch some cheerleading competition on ESPN1092.
“She’d just use it to pick up women to cook for her,” Kurt said.
“Then you should teach her.”
Kurt vehemently shook his head at that idea. “No. I once tried to show her how to make risotto and she ruined a kitchen timer, two sauce pans, and a meat thermometer.”
“She just did that so you’d never try to teach her again,” Sebastian pointed out.
Kurt shrugged at the details. “It’s worth the truffle oil to just feed her and send her on her way, otherwise you’ll have to cab it to Rikers for your conjugal visits.”
A night of rubber chicken served her right as far as Sebastian was concerned.
“All right, mister,” Rachel said after hanging up her coat. She hooked her arm through Kurt’s and tugged him into the kitchen. “This is great news about Mike, but I know there’s something else going on here.”
Sebastian gave them two minutes before walking in the kitchen to find Rachel jumping up and down, both hands covering her mouth to rein in her squeals of delight. Kurt studiously avoided Sebastian’s laughing eyes as Rachel uncovered her mouth. “Oh my God, Kurt, not that my prodigious talent needs a boost getting a job, but this virtually guarantees that any job I want it mine! I mean, my vocal talent, your aesthetic seal of approval, not to mention a guarantee for the premier party, I’ll be unstoppable!”
There was a time when Rachel’s ego would have irritated Sebastian, garnered an eye roll at the least and an acerbic insult or two. Sebastian had always been a little jealous of the bond Rachel and Kurt shared; how deep it was; how effortless. They were each possessive of the other, and there were times Sebastian felt like Rachel was competing with him to make sure he knew she would always come first with Kurt.
But then Kurt got sick and no one, no one fought Kurt’s cancer more ferociously than Rachel Berry.
Sebastian had figured Santana would be the strong one, but she was kind of a mess. She burst into tears every time she saw Kurt after he lost his hair and scared-worried-nervous-uncomfortable always came out mean with her-usually not aimed at Kurt, but it wasn’t uncommon for someone to stop by to visit Kurt then hightail back out the door when they realized Santana was there.
Rachel cried the day Kurt told her the news, but Sebastian never saw another tear after that. She was relentless in her belief that Kurt was going to be okay, and Sebastian never once saw the slightest wavering in that conviction. Sometimes she pulled Kurt from in front, sometimes she pushed him from behind. Jesus, sometimes she carried him on her back, but she travelled every agonizing step with them and never seemed to doubt it was all going to end okay.
When Burt Hummel suggested-bordering on insisted-that Kurt finish the last few chemo treatments in Lima, it had been Rachel who gently, but resolutely persuaded Burt to back off. Sebastian and Kurt were both virtually zombies by then, and if Sebastian hadn’t been so disheartened and dispirited he might have taken offense at the notion that Kurt wasn’t being taken care of properly, even if he knew that wasn’t what Burt meant.
From the start, Burt had understood what Sebastian was going through in a way no one else could. Not only was Kurt his son, but he had lost his first wife to illness (a heart condition, but still, loss was loss). He never gave Sebastian false, empty platitudes, instead, he just commiserated on what a raw fucking deal they’d been handed and pushed forward as best he could.
And he had a point about how they needed family, he just didn’t realize that they had one there in New York--fierce Rachel and even weepy Santana and sappy Anderson who was determined to serenade Kurt back to good health. Twice a week, Sebastian’s best friend Jake corralled him at six in the morning to go to the gym, taking him to breakfast afterward and offering Sebastian a small oasis of normalcy in a sea of anything but. Their neighbor, Mrs. Lieberman kept Kurt in chicken soup and noodle kugel-sometimes the only food he could stomach for days on end. A handful of part-time employees-and even a few of his competitors--kept Kurt’s catering business in the black.
There were countless examples of people reaching out to him and Kurt, and even if there weren’t, the idea of Lima being better for Kurt than New York was crazy. Sebastian wasn’t one to believe in new agey crap like Rachel and Blaine did, but even he knew there was nothing about Lima that would enhance Kurt’s chances of recovery.
Rachel made Burt believe it too because he, Carole and Finn came to them to ride out the final awful weeks of treatment. Who knows what she’d said to him-every other thing out of Rachel’s mouth was something preposterous, but she’d talked a panicked Sebastian off the ledge more than once. One time, Sebastian had called her at two in the morning, totally freaked out because Kurt-exhausted and feverish-had dreamed of his mother. He had smiled in his sleep, and whispered the word, “Mom,” sounding so surprised and happy, and Sebastian just lost it.
He was operating on no sleep, and it seemed like every new test brought back results worse than the one before and it was like all they did anymore was hunch their shoulders and wait for yet another shoe to drop. Sebastian dialed Rachel without even thinking about what time it was, launching into a hysterical rant about Kurt’s mother coming and trying to steal Kurt in the night.
Rachel waited patiently for Sebastian to take a breath. “Okay, Sebastian Smythe, now you listen to me,” she said, sounding as if she’d been wide awake and waiting for his call. “Kurt and I have been together non-stop the last three days, and we all know Carole is wonderful, but she is not and never has been his substitute mother. That’s me. Just like he’s mine, okay? Kurt was dreaming about me; he was not being visited by the spirit of his dead mother so she can escort him to the other side!” And the thing was, even though everything Rachel was saying was completely ridiculous, she made Sebastian feel unreasonable for believing anything else.
Sebastian could remember evenings when Rachel would sing quietly to Kurt as she fed him spoonfuls of oatmeal. Sores in his mouth made eating unbearable, but he needed something in his stomach to throw up so oatmeal it was. Tears would be coursing down Kurt’s cheek and there were times Sebastian just couldn’t sit and watch any longer, but Rachel was absolutely steadfast.
What Sebastian would remember most were the times he came home from work to find Kurt and Rachel spooned together on the bed, Rachel holding so tightly to Kurt it looked like she was all that was keeping him tethered to his body; to the earth; to them. Sebastian knew sometimes she was.
Which was good to remember when a lot of their Saturday mornings began with Rachel jumping in the bed between them and screaming, “Oh my God, are you naked?”
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, with Rachel lamenting to an earnest-looking Mike how hard it was for the actors playing horses in her show to pick up the choreography and maybe he might want to stop by before he left town to see if he could think of some pointers.
Kurt, on the other side of Mike, was already digging for details about potential apartments.
“No,” Sebastian overheard Kurt saying. “I mean, the high end of your budget.”
“Twelve,” Mike said. “Really, that’s the high end.”
Kurt’s overly polite smile was back. “Tell you what,” he said with a condescending pat to Mike’s shoulder. “I’ll call Allison in the morning, and we’ll figure it out.”
Mike passed a concerned look from Sebastian to Blaine, who’d already traded better-him-than-me looks with each other. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
Sebastian and Blaine answered simultaneously:
“You have no idea.”
“So much trouble.”
The evening broke up with plans to meet for brunch in the morning. Blaine had already received a text from Santana promising to be there, and not to worry, they could fight over who was paying for her in the morning.
Rachel paused at the door for Kurt to kiss her cheek. She smiled devilishly at him and said, “Five down.”
“Nine to go,” Kurt replied.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. For as long as he’d known them, Rachel and Kurt had been scheming to transplant their entire high school show choir to New York.
Sebastian could see Mercedes and Artie enjoying life in the Big Apple, maybe Noah, but not everyone was suited to big city life. Quinn was a professor at some granola-y, tree-hugging college in Connecticut-no way she was going to trade in her rolling green hills and Birkenstocks. And good God, Finn visited them two or three times a year and he still acted like he was fresh off the farm every time he was there.
At one point, watching Finn get stuck in yet another subway turn style, Sebastian had side-eyed Kurt, remembering Kurt’s conversation the night before extolling to Finn the wonders of living in New York. ”He’d be dead inside the first two weeks,” he’d said.
Kurt had to concede the point--that very morning Finn had been forced to call them for directions back to the apartment from the gym which was in the lower level of their building.
Even so, that crazy glee club still had a “no man left behind” policy, so scheming to get them all based out of NYC meant scheming to get them all based out of NYC.
No doubt part of brunch the next day would be spent cataloguing the whereabouts of the New Directions crowd and the chances of enticing more of them to the city. Sebastian didn’t care one way or the other so long as he got a Western omelet and a good cup of coffee out of it.
After everyone left, Sebastian and Kurt cleaned up the kitchen and reviewed the evening. Kurt liked Jake’s new girlfriend better than the last, but still missed the one who’d worked at the Museum of Natural History. Sebastian couldn’t understand why Larry Parks was leaving Fidelity for Edward Jones, but really, he couldn’t understand the draw of working for any of the big boys anyway. Kurt wondered if it was going to be hard for Mike to give up the gypsy life he’d been living, but Sebastian thought of visiting the zoo with his sister and her two toddlers and said traveling all the time with a kid had to be torturous. They both agreed that the green tea cheesecake was better than the lemon-ginger.
Kurt was finishing up his skin care regime when Sebastian returned to the bedroom after the final walkthrough to check the doors and turn off the lights. Kurt quirked an eyebrow as Sebastian shucked his clothes and slid between the sheets.
“Rachel’s picking us up in the morning,” Kurt reminded him.
“Caveat emptor,” Sebastian said, kicking down the sheet to expose his wares.
Kurt chuckled as Sebastian relaxed back in the bed, arms crossed behind his head. He watched Kurt smoothing moisturizer across his cheek and suddenly his throat felt tight, forcing him to duck his head for a moment. Sometimes he still saw Kurt as he was during the worst of his illness-ribs painfully visible under hairless skin stretched so tight it seemed translucent; Kurt’s face gray and drawn, his eyes betraying the calm, fearless front he showed the rest of the world.
Sebastian blinked and gave a slight shake of his head and let the real Kurt come back into focus. He’d washed his hands was now standing at the foot of the bed, blithely debating the neighborhoods where Mike should concentrate his apartment search. Sebastian must have had a funny look on his face because Kurt stopped mid-sentence and said, “What?”
“Nothing,” Sebastian said. “Just, you’re almost as excited to take Mike apartment shopping as you are about the Today Show gig.”
“You know how I feel about spending other people’s money,” Kurt demurred. He crawled from the edge of the bed over to Sebastian, leaning in to kiss him. He straddled Sebastian’s thighs, still on his knees, then gently relaxed down onto Sebastian’s lap. “You did a very good job not telling anyone,” Kurt said approvingly.
“You didn’t,” Sebastian teased. “Berry was here less than five minutes, and you were flappin’ your gums.”
Kurt shrugged. “Nothing really happens to me until Rachel knows about it,” he said, nibbling at Sebastian’s neck.
“That is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard right before we’re about to have sex,” Sebastian said, head tilting to give Kurt better access.
Kurt ground his ass against Sebastian’s erection. “Yes, I can see how unaroused you are.”
Sebastian chuckled. He might not have had the lazy Friday night he’d anticipated, but it was ending just as he’d hoped. His last coherent thought of the evening was the same one he’d had when he walked through the door after work. Lucky man.
#
Author: Myrna1_2_3
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Kurt/Sebastian
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Future!Fic. Sebastian and Kurt are together, it’s five years after college graduation, and we check in to see what’s up.
Disclaimer: Not-not-mine
Spoilers: Everything that’s happened in the show except for things that I didn’t want to have happen in the show.
Sebastian walked in the front door of the apartment he shared with his boyfriend, closing his eyes and blissfully inhaling the amazing aromas coming from the kitchen. Lucky man, Sebastian thought, and it wasn’t until he walked past the impeccably set dining room table that he remembered it was First Taste Friday. He’d left early that morning or he would have been given a reminder and at least foregone daydreaming about a lazy Friday night.
He stepped into the kitchen and had to grin at the organized chaos that greeted him. There were three pots already on the stove-top, two prep-stations in various stages of prep, and a cheesecake cooling on a rack. Kurt was singing along to the blaring soundtrack of the musical Rachel Berry was currently work shopping; something about veterinarians during World War II. War Horse meets South Pacific had been Rachel’s horrifying description.
“Remember this the next time you want to ask me if I’d rather be performing on Broadway,” Kurt had said as they watched the train wreck that was the first walk-through.
Sebastian had long since stopped worrying about whether or not Kurt was happy with the way things had turned out. By the time Kurt transferred to NYU, he was so in love with New York City, Sebastian was sure he could be happy as a septic tank repair man so long as he was repairing septic tanks in his beloved NYC.
As it was, Kurt had taken a small, almost hobby-like catering business and, in the five years since they’d graduated, built it into a full-service event planning operation. Between Rachel Berry’s connections in the theater world and Sebastian’s ties in the financial world, Kurt had been handed a steady clientele at the beginning of his venture, and now his jobs were booked out months in advance. More than one bride had changed her wedding date when it was discovered Kurt Hummel was unavailable for the event. He was starting to be featured in design magazines and had even made a few television appearances about cooking for, designing for or simply hosting fabulous parties.
When he first started catering, Kurt would invite a few friends over once in awhile to try new dishes he was thinking about incorporating into his repertoire. Somehow, the get-togethers turned into a formal, monthly obligation, with detailed reviews expected from the guests discussing their favorite appetizers, entrees and desserts.
It was an eclectic crowd-some friends of Kurt’s from high school-Rachel, Blaine Anderson, Santana Lopez; Sebastian’s college roommate Jake and a couple of buddies from their softball league; a few of the blue-haired women Kurt had worked for over the years who were perpetually trying to adopt him. Husbands, wives and significant others would bring the tally to fourteen, sometimes sixteen, which was the most their dining room table could handle.
And even though guests were expected to pull their weight with foody reviews, it was still a hot ticket. When Sebastian’s friend Eli was transferred to London and had to give up his spot, Sebastian was hit up by a handful of people looking to be added to the First Taste Friday guest list. “They just want you on retainer to do their next party at cost,” Sebastian had said as Kurt was sifting through potential replacements.
“Hmmm, then maybe we should pick someone we can trade services with. Allen has an apartment in Paris…”
“But he brings that fucking yippy dog everywhere.”
“True,” Kurt said. “Plus have you seen what that man eats? Fried on a stick is a food group as far as he’s concerned.”
“There’s an off-color joke somewhere in there, I’m just not sure where,” Sebastian said. “How about Neil-can’t hurt to have an orthopedic surgeon on call, right?”
Kurt shook his head. “No, remember, he slept with Albert when Albert and Cal were on a break.”
“Oh, that’s right. How about Eric?”
“He slept with Rachel when he and Charlie were on a break.” Kurt had frowned at the list of names in front of him. “Our friends are kind of slutty.”
“That’s why we like them,” Sebastian had said. But they ended up going with the decidedly unslutty , Mr. Lubouwski who owned the small store-front Kurt rented in Chelsea. He and his wife were in their sixties, and certainly not members of any social elite, but boy did they know good food. Some of Kurt’s favorite recipes were from the duct-taped cookbook Mrs. Lubouwski’s mother gave her daughter on her wedding day.
Sebastian sighed now, anticipating the long, hectic night ahead, and set his laptop down with a thump that finally alerted Kurt to his presence.
Kurt looked up from the mirepoix he was dicing and smiled at him. “Hey, I didn’t hear you come in,” he said. “How was your day?” He leaned over the counter for a kiss which Sebastian was happy to oblige.
“Great until I realized it was First Taste Friday,” he said. “Why can’t we ever have a boring night in front of the TV?”
Kurt snorted at that and went back to chopping celery. “Your dinner last night was Wheat Chex swimming in beer, which you ate standing over the kitchen sink wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.”
Sebastian’s shrug conveyed he couldn’t possibly understand what that had to do with anything. “You’re welcome, by the way. The boxers were a treat for you.”
Kurt spared him a glance. “I believe my appreciation was appropriately conveyed,” he said.
Sebastian laughed. “So who’s coming tonight?” he asked. “Plaine, of course.”
Kurt cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t look up from his dicing. “Yes, he is,” he said. “With Jeffrey.”
Sebastian groaned. “Great, the only gay guy in NYC more generic than Blanderson.”
Kurt glared at Sebastian, motioning at him with the carving knife in a gesture that looked casual to the unlearned eye, but Sebastian knew a threat when he saw one. “You are to be on your best behavior,” Kurt warned. “This is the first boyfriend in the last four that I can tolerate-you’re not messing this up for me.”
“The last time we went out, he spent, like, five hours extolling the virtues of his new blender.”
“Blender/juicer combo,” Kurt corrected, lips quirking up at the corners.
“Five. Hours,” Sebastian repeated slowly.
“Make nice,” Kurt said. “Blaine could still be with Jerome Have-I-Told-You-About-My-Cats.”
“Oh God,” Sebastian said, realizing it really could be worse. “Or Bill I-Never-Met-A-Pastrami-Sandwich-I-Didn’t-Take-A-Picture-Of-With-My-Cell-Phone-Here-Look-At-Them-Look-At-Them-Look-at-Them!”
Kurt grimaced. “We really should try to learn their last names,” he said.
“Who has that kind of time?” Sebastian said, wandering off to change his clothes. He checked his Blackberry, fired off a couple of emails then returned to the kitchen.
As Sebastian helped himself to a beer, Kurt said, “So, guess what?” A warm flush colored his cheeks.
“Pleated pants are making a comeback this fall,” Sebastian guessed.
Kurt set down his knife, all playfulness abruptly disappearing. “There are some things we don’t joke about in this household,” he said sternly.
Sebastian laughed, leaning back against the kitchen counter and eyeing Kurt with an exaggeratedly shrewd look on his face. “Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re wearing your saucy, good-news face, so it can’t be that another of the Gay Brigade are heading upstate to raise kids or goats or whatever.”
“We’ve gone a record three days without one of those announcements,” Kurt said dryly.
“So tell me what,” Sebastian said.
Kurt smiled, eyes shining with excitement. He took a deep breath and said, “I got the Today show.”
Sebastian stood arrow straight, gaping at Kurt for a few beats before saying, “Wait, wait, I thought Dowdy Middle got the job.”
Kurt had been in the running as the Today Show’s new style guru, but just the week before, they’d learned the job had been offered to a woman Kurt had dubbed “Dowdy Middle” for her appeal to similarly middle-aged, Midwest, middling viewers.
“She did,” Kurt said. “And she must have gone out this weekend to celebrate, because last Saturday she was pulled over with a BAC twice the legal limit and a 19 year-old “escort” in the car with her.”
“No fucking way!” Sebastian said, his heart starting to race. “Oh my God!” he shouted, scooping Kurt up into a bear hug. “This is so awesome!” he said. They spun around a few times, then Sebastian set Kurt down, keeping him in place with two hands gripping his shoulders. Sebastian shook him excitedly. “We are going to be so fucking rich!” He planted a wet kiss on Kurt’s mouth, both of them laughing into it.
“I know!” Kurt said. “Do you realize we are never going to have call ahead for a table in this town again? Ever!”
“I told you we needed to wait for this apartment to free up,” Sebastian said. “When People Magazine comes to take our picture for the 50 Most Sexy…”
“Beautiful,” Kurt corrected.
“Whatever,” Sebastian dismissed. “We’re both. When they come to take our picture, we’re going to be leaning against the desk in front of that massive living room window with the whole city behind us! It’ll look like a fucking movie backdrop!”
“It will look fantastic,” Kurt said. “We’ll look fantastic.”
“When do they put that issue together?” Sebastian wondered aloud. “No way are they referring to me as a junior partner. Barker’s going to have to pony up the full partnership before that.”
“They can just say financier,” Kurt assured him.
“That makes me sound unemployed,” Sebastian said.
“Hedge fund wunderkind?” Kurt suggested with a grin. An article in the Times had referred to a highly offended Sebastian as such in an article after his first wildly successful year at Barker Kauffman. Sebastian hadn’t been upset at the wunderkind moniker, merely that the Times hadn’t actually mentioned his name.
“You know what this means?” Sebastian said. “We won’t have to borrow the money to buy into the partnership. Oh man, we are so home free!”
“No mingling with the riff raff at Barney’s,” Kurt said with a dreamy sigh. “They’re going to bring the suits to me. I’ll get my pick. I’m going to be wooed by Armani and McQueen, Bloomingdales and Saks. Wooed ! Oh my God, Anna Wintour is going to use her cold, bony fingers to personally dial my cell to influence my Fall Must-Haves and my Spring Can’t-Live-Withouts!.”
Sebastian laughed. “Burt and Carole are going to freak,” he said. “My mom’s going to freak!” He thought to himself for a few seconds. “Aw shit, and there are like, a hundred and eighty photos on my Facebook page of my dad wearing Bermudas with black socks. First scandal for sure.”
Kurt laughed with him. “Well, we can’t say anything until it’s officially announced next week, so…”
“What?” Sebastian said, then whined, “Kurt! You can’t tell me something like this when we’re expecting a houseful of people and then expect me to keep my mouth shut. Especially when there’s beer.”
“So don’t drink,” Kurt said.
That just made Sebastian whine more. “You can’t expect me to not drink when I’m spending the evening with Jeffrey-It-Slices-It-Dices-It-Chops-It-Blends!”
“Don’t forget Juices,” Kurt said with a smile.
Sebastian closely eyed Kurt and said, “Have you told Rachel?” If Rachel knew, Sebastian wouldn’t have to worry because she’d blab way before he ever would.
“No,” Kurt said pointedly, obviously following Sebastian’s thought process.
So Sebastian wasn’t completely out of options. “Is she coming tonight?”
Kurt pursed his lips, looking slightly less certain. ”Yes,” he admitted.
Sebastian grinned with relief. Rachel would take one look at Kurt’s face and know something was up. Those two had a weird, Wonder Twins thing going that Sebastian didn’t even try to understand. Hell, he was half surprised Rachel hadn’t already sensed a disturbance in the universe and transported herself over to investigate.
Kurt rolled his eyes at Sebastian’s smug look. “Go open a couple of bottles of red,” he said.
“All right, but I’m not bringing up the good stuff for this motley crew.”
“Honey,” Kurt said, sounding disappointed, and Sebastian paused for a scolding. Instead, Kurt just gently patted Sebastian’s cheek. “You don’t know which ones are the good ones.”
An hour later, most of their guests had arrived and were enjoying a glass of wine with duck breast and bacon-pineapple appetizers. Kurt buzzed Blaine and Jeffrey in, then cocked his head a minute later when a knock sounded. He opened the door to find Blaine grinning hugely and bouncing on his heels.
Kurt quirked an eyebrow at him for knocking in the first place and now just standing there in the hall. “Hey,” Blaine said, “You don’t mind making room for one more, do you?”
Kurt’s overly polite what-choice-do-I-have-but-we’ll-speak-of-this-later smile morphed into actual delight when Blaine proudly pulled a familiar face into the doorway.
“Mike Chang!” Kurt said with a laugh. “What are you doing here? Come in, come in!”
Mike looked as delighted as Kurt, his eyes going wide in surprise. He laughed as he said, “Oh my God, Kurt, you look fantastic!” He pulled Kurt into a massive hug, laughed again, then pushed Kurt away, hands on his shoulders to take another look. “I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “Pictures don’t do it justice, man! Artie said you looked great when he saw you in February, but wow! You look amazing!”
The world lurched and slowed its rotation for a beat, like it always did when Sebastian had the staggering realization that he’d actually forgotten for a moment. He did the math in his head and figured they’d last seen Mike a year and a half ago. Finn had hosted an impromptu New Directions get-together over the Christmas holiday when most of them were in Lima visiting family.
Kurt would have been just two months out from the last chemo treatment.
Kurt ducked his head with modesty Sebastian knew was utterly false. “Yes, yes, I’ve been restored to my former glory,” he said, preening.
It was quiet for a few beats, not yet uncomfortable but edging that way.
“So what are you doing in New York?” Sebastian asked, then offered a guess. “A new show?” Mike was a choreographer, based in LA, but he and his dancer wife travelled wherever his or her latest job took them.
“Not a new show, but a new gig,” Mike said. “I’m taking a teaching position at The Broadway Dance Center.”
“That’s amazing!” Kurt said, voice pitching high in his excitement. “I didn’t even know you were thinking about teaching!”
Mike grinned. “Allison’s pregnant,” he said. “Jack’s starting kindergarten in another year-we felt like it was time to put down some roots and the Dance Center came calling, like, 15 minutes after we found out Alli was pregnant again. Seemed like fate, you know?”
Kurt’s eyes were enormous. “Oh my God,” he said as realization dawned, then added in a sing-song voice, “This means apartment hunting!”
Rachel Berry burst through the door a few minutes later, probably watching from across the street to ensure enough of a crowd to maximize the drama of her arrival. Her divaesque entrance melted to genuine happiness at the sight of Mike and his employment news.
“So is Santana coming?” Mike asked. “Blaine says she’s a regular too.”
“She’s at some Legal Defense fund raiser,” Sebastian said, not that he usually knew Santana’s whereabouts, but she’d hit him up for a sizeable donation when he and Kurt declined the invitation.
“Aww, poor baby,” said Jeffrey. “Should we feel bad about our feast when she’s spending the night with rubber chicken and cheap Chardonnay ?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes, feeling no sympathy for the absent Santana. She wrangled an invite to dinner at their place at least once a week by passively aggressively texting Kurt things like, “Will tuna taste ok in Italian hmbrgr hlpr?” Sebastian knew the texts were passive aggressive because he’d caught her more than once sending them from the lobby of their apartment building.
“Why don’t you just show up at the door with an empty plate and a napkin tied around your neck?” Sebastian had grumbled once, hauling her into the elevator with him.
“Not my fault Hummel likes to get his Happy Homemaker on,” she’d nonsensically replied.
She always ended up with a full belly and a few Tupperware containers to take home.
“We should enroll her in a cooking class,” Sebastian said one night, watching a Yankees game on DVR because Santana had commandeered their TV set to watch some cheerleading competition on ESPN1092.
“She’d just use it to pick up women to cook for her,” Kurt said.
“Then you should teach her.”
Kurt vehemently shook his head at that idea. “No. I once tried to show her how to make risotto and she ruined a kitchen timer, two sauce pans, and a meat thermometer.”
“She just did that so you’d never try to teach her again,” Sebastian pointed out.
Kurt shrugged at the details. “It’s worth the truffle oil to just feed her and send her on her way, otherwise you’ll have to cab it to Rikers for your conjugal visits.”
A night of rubber chicken served her right as far as Sebastian was concerned.
“All right, mister,” Rachel said after hanging up her coat. She hooked her arm through Kurt’s and tugged him into the kitchen. “This is great news about Mike, but I know there’s something else going on here.”
Sebastian gave them two minutes before walking in the kitchen to find Rachel jumping up and down, both hands covering her mouth to rein in her squeals of delight. Kurt studiously avoided Sebastian’s laughing eyes as Rachel uncovered her mouth. “Oh my God, Kurt, not that my prodigious talent needs a boost getting a job, but this virtually guarantees that any job I want it mine! I mean, my vocal talent, your aesthetic seal of approval, not to mention a guarantee for the premier party, I’ll be unstoppable!”
There was a time when Rachel’s ego would have irritated Sebastian, garnered an eye roll at the least and an acerbic insult or two. Sebastian had always been a little jealous of the bond Rachel and Kurt shared; how deep it was; how effortless. They were each possessive of the other, and there were times Sebastian felt like Rachel was competing with him to make sure he knew she would always come first with Kurt.
But then Kurt got sick and no one, no one fought Kurt’s cancer more ferociously than Rachel Berry.
Sebastian had figured Santana would be the strong one, but she was kind of a mess. She burst into tears every time she saw Kurt after he lost his hair and scared-worried-nervous-uncomfortable always came out mean with her-usually not aimed at Kurt, but it wasn’t uncommon for someone to stop by to visit Kurt then hightail back out the door when they realized Santana was there.
Rachel cried the day Kurt told her the news, but Sebastian never saw another tear after that. She was relentless in her belief that Kurt was going to be okay, and Sebastian never once saw the slightest wavering in that conviction. Sometimes she pulled Kurt from in front, sometimes she pushed him from behind. Jesus, sometimes she carried him on her back, but she travelled every agonizing step with them and never seemed to doubt it was all going to end okay.
When Burt Hummel suggested-bordering on insisted-that Kurt finish the last few chemo treatments in Lima, it had been Rachel who gently, but resolutely persuaded Burt to back off. Sebastian and Kurt were both virtually zombies by then, and if Sebastian hadn’t been so disheartened and dispirited he might have taken offense at the notion that Kurt wasn’t being taken care of properly, even if he knew that wasn’t what Burt meant.
From the start, Burt had understood what Sebastian was going through in a way no one else could. Not only was Kurt his son, but he had lost his first wife to illness (a heart condition, but still, loss was loss). He never gave Sebastian false, empty platitudes, instead, he just commiserated on what a raw fucking deal they’d been handed and pushed forward as best he could.
And he had a point about how they needed family, he just didn’t realize that they had one there in New York--fierce Rachel and even weepy Santana and sappy Anderson who was determined to serenade Kurt back to good health. Twice a week, Sebastian’s best friend Jake corralled him at six in the morning to go to the gym, taking him to breakfast afterward and offering Sebastian a small oasis of normalcy in a sea of anything but. Their neighbor, Mrs. Lieberman kept Kurt in chicken soup and noodle kugel-sometimes the only food he could stomach for days on end. A handful of part-time employees-and even a few of his competitors--kept Kurt’s catering business in the black.
There were countless examples of people reaching out to him and Kurt, and even if there weren’t, the idea of Lima being better for Kurt than New York was crazy. Sebastian wasn’t one to believe in new agey crap like Rachel and Blaine did, but even he knew there was nothing about Lima that would enhance Kurt’s chances of recovery.
Rachel made Burt believe it too because he, Carole and Finn came to them to ride out the final awful weeks of treatment. Who knows what she’d said to him-every other thing out of Rachel’s mouth was something preposterous, but she’d talked a panicked Sebastian off the ledge more than once. One time, Sebastian had called her at two in the morning, totally freaked out because Kurt-exhausted and feverish-had dreamed of his mother. He had smiled in his sleep, and whispered the word, “Mom,” sounding so surprised and happy, and Sebastian just lost it.
He was operating on no sleep, and it seemed like every new test brought back results worse than the one before and it was like all they did anymore was hunch their shoulders and wait for yet another shoe to drop. Sebastian dialed Rachel without even thinking about what time it was, launching into a hysterical rant about Kurt’s mother coming and trying to steal Kurt in the night.
Rachel waited patiently for Sebastian to take a breath. “Okay, Sebastian Smythe, now you listen to me,” she said, sounding as if she’d been wide awake and waiting for his call. “Kurt and I have been together non-stop the last three days, and we all know Carole is wonderful, but she is not and never has been his substitute mother. That’s me. Just like he’s mine, okay? Kurt was dreaming about me; he was not being visited by the spirit of his dead mother so she can escort him to the other side!” And the thing was, even though everything Rachel was saying was completely ridiculous, she made Sebastian feel unreasonable for believing anything else.
Sebastian could remember evenings when Rachel would sing quietly to Kurt as she fed him spoonfuls of oatmeal. Sores in his mouth made eating unbearable, but he needed something in his stomach to throw up so oatmeal it was. Tears would be coursing down Kurt’s cheek and there were times Sebastian just couldn’t sit and watch any longer, but Rachel was absolutely steadfast.
What Sebastian would remember most were the times he came home from work to find Kurt and Rachel spooned together on the bed, Rachel holding so tightly to Kurt it looked like she was all that was keeping him tethered to his body; to the earth; to them. Sebastian knew sometimes she was.
Which was good to remember when a lot of their Saturday mornings began with Rachel jumping in the bed between them and screaming, “Oh my God, are you naked?”
The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, with Rachel lamenting to an earnest-looking Mike how hard it was for the actors playing horses in her show to pick up the choreography and maybe he might want to stop by before he left town to see if he could think of some pointers.
Kurt, on the other side of Mike, was already digging for details about potential apartments.
“No,” Sebastian overheard Kurt saying. “I mean, the high end of your budget.”
“Twelve,” Mike said. “Really, that’s the high end.”
Kurt’s overly polite smile was back. “Tell you what,” he said with a condescending pat to Mike’s shoulder. “I’ll call Allison in the morning, and we’ll figure it out.”
Mike passed a concerned look from Sebastian to Blaine, who’d already traded better-him-than-me looks with each other. “I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
Sebastian and Blaine answered simultaneously:
“You have no idea.”
“So much trouble.”
The evening broke up with plans to meet for brunch in the morning. Blaine had already received a text from Santana promising to be there, and not to worry, they could fight over who was paying for her in the morning.
Rachel paused at the door for Kurt to kiss her cheek. She smiled devilishly at him and said, “Five down.”
“Nine to go,” Kurt replied.
Sebastian rolled his eyes. For as long as he’d known them, Rachel and Kurt had been scheming to transplant their entire high school show choir to New York.
Sebastian could see Mercedes and Artie enjoying life in the Big Apple, maybe Noah, but not everyone was suited to big city life. Quinn was a professor at some granola-y, tree-hugging college in Connecticut-no way she was going to trade in her rolling green hills and Birkenstocks. And good God, Finn visited them two or three times a year and he still acted like he was fresh off the farm every time he was there.
At one point, watching Finn get stuck in yet another subway turn style, Sebastian had side-eyed Kurt, remembering Kurt’s conversation the night before extolling to Finn the wonders of living in New York. ”He’d be dead inside the first two weeks,” he’d said.
Kurt had to concede the point--that very morning Finn had been forced to call them for directions back to the apartment from the gym which was in the lower level of their building.
Even so, that crazy glee club still had a “no man left behind” policy, so scheming to get them all based out of NYC meant scheming to get them all based out of NYC.
No doubt part of brunch the next day would be spent cataloguing the whereabouts of the New Directions crowd and the chances of enticing more of them to the city. Sebastian didn’t care one way or the other so long as he got a Western omelet and a good cup of coffee out of it.
After everyone left, Sebastian and Kurt cleaned up the kitchen and reviewed the evening. Kurt liked Jake’s new girlfriend better than the last, but still missed the one who’d worked at the Museum of Natural History. Sebastian couldn’t understand why Larry Parks was leaving Fidelity for Edward Jones, but really, he couldn’t understand the draw of working for any of the big boys anyway. Kurt wondered if it was going to be hard for Mike to give up the gypsy life he’d been living, but Sebastian thought of visiting the zoo with his sister and her two toddlers and said traveling all the time with a kid had to be torturous. They both agreed that the green tea cheesecake was better than the lemon-ginger.
Kurt was finishing up his skin care regime when Sebastian returned to the bedroom after the final walkthrough to check the doors and turn off the lights. Kurt quirked an eyebrow as Sebastian shucked his clothes and slid between the sheets.
“Rachel’s picking us up in the morning,” Kurt reminded him.
“Caveat emptor,” Sebastian said, kicking down the sheet to expose his wares.
Kurt chuckled as Sebastian relaxed back in the bed, arms crossed behind his head. He watched Kurt smoothing moisturizer across his cheek and suddenly his throat felt tight, forcing him to duck his head for a moment. Sometimes he still saw Kurt as he was during the worst of his illness-ribs painfully visible under hairless skin stretched so tight it seemed translucent; Kurt’s face gray and drawn, his eyes betraying the calm, fearless front he showed the rest of the world.
Sebastian blinked and gave a slight shake of his head and let the real Kurt come back into focus. He’d washed his hands was now standing at the foot of the bed, blithely debating the neighborhoods where Mike should concentrate his apartment search. Sebastian must have had a funny look on his face because Kurt stopped mid-sentence and said, “What?”
“Nothing,” Sebastian said. “Just, you’re almost as excited to take Mike apartment shopping as you are about the Today Show gig.”
“You know how I feel about spending other people’s money,” Kurt demurred. He crawled from the edge of the bed over to Sebastian, leaning in to kiss him. He straddled Sebastian’s thighs, still on his knees, then gently relaxed down onto Sebastian’s lap. “You did a very good job not telling anyone,” Kurt said approvingly.
“You didn’t,” Sebastian teased. “Berry was here less than five minutes, and you were flappin’ your gums.”
Kurt shrugged. “Nothing really happens to me until Rachel knows about it,” he said, nibbling at Sebastian’s neck.
“That is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard right before we’re about to have sex,” Sebastian said, head tilting to give Kurt better access.
Kurt ground his ass against Sebastian’s erection. “Yes, I can see how unaroused you are.”
Sebastian chuckled. He might not have had the lazy Friday night he’d anticipated, but it was ending just as he’d hoped. His last coherent thought of the evening was the same one he’d had when he walked through the door after work. Lucky man.
#