Roses of the Alps - Chapter Ten
Title: Roses of the Alps
Summary: Burt has his heart attack towards the end of Kurt's sophomore year and dies from it, leaving Kurt orphaned. His family, unable to care for him, send him off to an international boarding school in Switzerland, where one of his ancestors is an alumni.
Meanwhile, Sebastian got into trouble once too often and gets kicked out of his school in Paris. Figuring that he won't be able to get into as much trouble in the middle of nowhere in the Alps, his parents send him off to the same school as Kurt.
While Kurt is trying to get over his father's death, he and Sebastian meet and start a friendship with benefits, that has potential to become more.
Rating: M
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Warnings: Character Death, Dub-Con
Other Pairings: None
Beta: shadowwanderer (my sister) and jassanja
Artist: Freakingpotter
Word-count: 54 076
A/N: Huge thanks to my sister and my friend Jassanja, who jumped in to beta-read for me, when none of the betas who signed up here, who I wrote, answered the messages I sent to them. Also, kudos, hugs and thanks to Freakingpotter for the wonderful art. ^^
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three Part 1 | Chapter Three Part 2 | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven Part 1 | Chapter Seven Part 2 | Chapter Eight | Chapter Nine | Chapter Ten | Chapter Eleven | Chapter Twelve Part 1 | Chapter Twelve Part 2 | Epilogue
Chapter Ten
It was several days before Kurt saw Sebastian again outside of the classroom. The last of their tests before the end of the semester was over and Kurt was just waiting for the results to find out if he’d been accepted into the higher level or not.
He tried to avoid thinking of it, but it never worked. His mind would always go back to it. He kept wondering if he was living up to his family’s expectations. He kept wondering if he was good enough for them. He didn’t want to let them down.
It was a nice, sunny Saturday. It had snowed the night before, so everything outside was fresh and white. He heard a knock on the door and opened it, only to find Sebastian decked out in a snowboarding outfit, two snowboards held in his hands.
“Get ready. We’re going out.”
“What? You can’t just spring this on me after we haven’t talked for so long! I’m not ready! I have homework to do…”
“Bullshit. If I know you, it’s probably all done, except for the stuff where you have a long period to do it. Besides, I told you weeks ago. I left you alone until the tests were done. The semester is almost over. Have some fun! Going out now isn’t going to change anything except for loosen you up.”
“What do you mean, you left me alone until the tests were done?”
“Reto told me that you were under a lot of stress because of the tests and not to take things you say too personally. I kinda understand, so I decided to leave you be until they were finished. That way you could actually relax a bit.”
“But I don’t know how well I did!”
“Doesn’t matter. This’ll get your mind off of it.”
“I don’t want to get cold and wet!”
“Then dress correctly.”
“I don’t have anything to wear!”
“I doubt that. You always have something to wear. Let me take a look.”
“There’s no way I’m letting you go through my clothes for me!”
“Well, then get dressed. I know you have some of the stuff. The school practically forces us to do some type of snow activity.”
“I chose figure-skating for a reason, you know.”
“Fine. In that case, wear a warm, water-proof pair of pants and a jacket.”
“And if I don’t have any?”
“Then you’ll be shit out of luck when it’s Winter Sports Day with the school.”
“What?”
“Haven’t you kept up to date? It’s in March.”
“So I have to wear something as… unfashionable… as that getup?” Kurt gestured at Sebastian’s clothes.
“You bet. So you’ll have to buy something. I’ll take pity on you today. You can borrow something from me. We’re about the same size and I have a few extra.”
“Why do you have extra?”
“Well, in case they get dirty, sweaty, torn - you know the norm. I know a guy who went sledding and managed to cut clean through his boot.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Well, okay, the boots weren’t actually all that sturdy. They were the soft type - but he still managed it. I wasn’t in the same group as him, so I only heard about it and saw them afterwards, but believe me: they were truly cut through. Since then, I’ve made sure to have a few extra sets. Don’t want to have to use my credit card on that stuff. It’s darn expensive.”
“Then I couldn’t afford it, anyway. My credit card has a fairly low limit.”
“Parents making sure you don’t spend too much on fashion or something?”
Kurt’s face grew stony. “Or something. So, can we go?”
“Sure. I’ll get you outfitted. Maybe you can borrow my stuff for Winter Sports Day, too. If not, you’ll have to borrow something from one of the stores.”
“Yeah, sure. Maybe I can just do figure skating instead. That’s cheaper to borrow.”
“You don’t even have ice skates?”
“I outgrew the pair I had as a kid. Since then, I haven’t really been clamoring to go ice skating. Even then, it was more because I was forced to.”
“You never liked going out, did you?”
“Nope. Never. Always wanted to salvage my clothes. You know, keep them nice. That way, they could be sold again when I outgrew them.”
“You thought about reselling them that early on? You were some strange kid.”
“Whatever.” Kurt left the room, locking the door behind him and headed towards the Grosshaus. “You coming?”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
“First of all, I’m not wearing any. You should know that better than anyone what I wear for underwear. Second of all, you’re the one who wants to drag me on this useless activity people spend way too much time and money on.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “You’ll see. It’s fun.”
“I sincerely doubt that.”
Sebastian winked. Everything’s fun with me.”
“You’re a stuck up idiot who thinks he’s the center of the world. Of course you’d think everything’s better with you.”
“You bet.”
“I don’t have to.”
“You might make money on it.”
“No one would be willing to bet against me.”
“I can think of a few people who might…”
“Well, enlighten me, then.”
“Our French teacher.”
“That’s just because he worships the ground you walk on for having lived in France and speaking almost perfect French.”
“Almost perfect? It is perfect!”
“Just because the teacher can’t spot your mistakes doesn’t mean I can’t.”
“I do not make mistakes in French.”
“Do, too.”
“Do not.”
“Do, too.”
“Do not!”
“Do, too.” Kurt stuck out his tongue and dashed off towards the Grosshaus along the paths that had been shoveled early that day.
“Do not!” Sebastian called after him, taking his time. “Don’t forget that you need me to get in!”
“At least I’ll be out of the cold, then!” Kurt called back.
“How are you supposed to last a minute in higher altitudes like that?”
“You’re the one dragging me along into this. I’d just as soon stay here. Maybe I’ll go to the library instead…”
Sebastian dashed after him. He was a little faster than Kurt was, so he caught him and tackled him into the snow-covered lawn to their side. “Not a chance. You’re going with me.” He pressed a kiss to Kurt’s lips. “Remember, hot chocolate…”
“Without marshmallows and with real milk and Swiss chocolate.”
“Promise. And afterwards we can find other activities to get everything else nice and warm in my room.”
“Do you ever not think about sex?”
“Nope. I’m a teenage boy. Of course I don’t think about anything other than sex and, if I do, then I manage to find a double-entendre in there somewhere that leads me back to sex.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I know.”
“Let me up. I’m getting cold.”
“I could help you with that.” Sebastian glanced around quickly before clasping Kurt’s groin and squeezing it slightly.
Kurt groaned. “Does that mean I get out of going on this stupid trip of yours?”
“Nope. It just means that we can postpone it for about half an hour to an hour.”
“That means we’d be getting going just before lunch. We could stay here for lunch.”
“Nah, I’ll treat you to lunch up at the restaurant by the ski-lift.”
“It would be cheaper, if we ate here.”
“Yep, and you’d have another excuse to stay later. You’d keep finding them until it was too late to go.”
“Would that be a bad thing?”
“Not necessarily. If it’s the right things we’re doing.” He smirked. “But today we’re going out. End of story.”
“You were the one who brought up having sex.”
“Yep, I was, but I think now I’ll keep it as a reward for getting out and doing something.”
Kurt frowned. “I get out and do a lot of things.”
“Yeah, right; that’s why I can find you in the library, your room or the common room like clockwork, worshiping the books of knowledge.”
“Well, at least then I know that I’m doing my best to get good grades. I’m still trying to make up for the poor school I used to go to.”
“Whatever. Shall we go?”
“Are we really not going to have sex now?”
“Are you desperate for it? Are you having troubles keeping your hands off of my fantastic ass? Are you that horny for me?”
Kurt’s eyes grew defiant. “Never!”
“Well, then I guess then we won’t. We’ll keep it as a reward for you once we get back.” He gripped Kurt’s hand, pulling him up with him as he stood up, almost overbalancing.
Kurt’s eyes widened. “No! Wait! I mean…”
Sebastian stuck out his tongue. “Too late. Always so competitive, Kurt: never willing to acknowledge what you need.”
Kurt sulked. “I tell you what I need…”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? Then why is it that I’m the one who always has to call you over? Why is it that I’m the one constantly driving this relationship of ours?”
“I don’t need you.”
Sebastian joked, “Try finding someone else in this school willing to sleep with you.”
Kurt stopped, turned around and fled back to his room. He heard Sebastian calling after him, but he couldn’t stop. He knew Sebastian was joking. He had to have been. He had that little quirk of his lips that he only got when he was teasing. It was too close, though. Those were the exact same words he’d thought to himself over and over again.
No one other than Sebastian would ever want him. No one could want him. He was effeminate. He wasn’t at all like those men in those magazines April had given him. He was scrawny and lithe. He still had those pear hips that Coach Sylvester had always gone on about. No matter how much weight he unwillingly lost, that didn’t change. He wasn’t really attractive. No gay guy could really want him. He was too girly. He knew that.
He suddenly noticed that his cheeks were freezing and his lungs burned from breathing heavily in the cold air. He slowed down slightly to get his bearing and catch his breath. A moment later, warm, familiar arms were surrounding him.
Sebastian roughly turned him around. Kurt resisted weakly and, even when he was faced in Sebastian’s direction, refused to look up at him. Sebastian gripped Kurt’s chin and forced him to look up. The annoyed look died on his face a moment later as he asked, “Kurt, why are you crying?”
Kurt blinked. Was that why his cheeks had suddenly grown colder?
Sebastian took his glove off to wipe the tears off. “God, Kurt, I was kidding. I didn’t mean that. Lots of men would want to bang you. Trust me. If you were in a bar or club, you’d be getting propositions left and right. Someone as good-looking as you wouldn’t be alone for long. I swear.”
“Really?”
Sebastian nodded and drew Kurt in close again. “Yeah, really. Believe me: if you were but-ugly, I wouldn’t be able to get it up with you.”
“That isn’t exactly reassuring!” Kurt tried to push away from him.
Sebastian held on tightly. “No, that isn’t what I meant! I meant… I meant… I wouldn’t have propositioned you, if I didn’t think you were attractive and, now that I’ve seen you naked, I can truly say that you are one fine specimen.”
Kurt relaxed and rolled his eyes as small lopsided smile began to shine through, even as he sniffed. “I think you need to work on your cheering-up skills, Bas. They’re a little rusty.”
“It’s not generally a skill I cultivate. Now, how about we let this little faux-pas of mine go and I teach you how to snowboard, okay?”
“Okay, Bas. Let’s go.” For the first time, Kurt actually leaned up slightly to peck Sebastian on the lips. Sebastian didn’t let it remain an innocent peck, though, and held Kurt there, licking at his lips for entrance. Suddenly, the cold around them didn’t seem to matter, as Kurt felt inexplicably warm.
It was with great hesitance that they parted. Kurt’s cheeks were warm and he felt slightly dazed. He breathed in deeply, the cold air burning slightly in his lungs. Sebastian’s eyes didn’t sway from Kurt’s.
Kurt commented, “Shouldn’t we go?”
Sebastian blinked several times and cleared his throat. “Yeah. Go. We should go. To my room. To pick up one of my spare snowboarding outfits. That’s right.”
Kurt giggled as he let Sebastian lead him, holding his hand. He tried not to think about the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach or how the pink on his cheeks had nothing to do with the cold temperatures.
***
When Kurt returned to his room that evening, he was smiling. He felt like he’d accomplished something. Sure, he’d only been able to stay upright for a fraction of the time he was actually on the board, but Sebastian had been patient with him. He’d gone over things with him time and again. As promised, he’d never insulted Kurt’s lack of progress. Instead, he’d just gently pushed Kurt onwards.
When they’d gotten cold, they’d gone into the restaurant next to the ski-lift and had a hot Ovi (they had discovered that they didn’t actually have any hot chocolate - only Ovomaltine. The waitress had told them that it actually had more vitamins and minerals in it, as well as malt sugar, which could help you go on longer. She’d then quoted a commercial, ‘Mit Ovi chansch nöd besser - aber länger.’ Then she’d translated it, ‘With Ovi you can’t do it better - but longer.’
Kurt had found that to be true. It had given him a bit of extra energy. However, he still hadn’t gotten the basics of snowboarding down until the very end of the day. At that point, Sebastian had done a little dance yelling ‘finally,’ to which Kurt had responded with laughter.
Urs and Reto were already there when he arrived. Reto asked, “How was your day?”
Urs asked, “Where were you?”
“Sebastian got it stuck in his head to teach me how to snowboard, so we were gone all day doing that. I’m honestly surprised he didn’t give up on me.”
Reto asked, “Did you have fun?”
Kurt paused. “Surprisingly, yeah, I did. I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d be stuck there, bored to tears. Instead, well, I was able to forget for a while. I was so focused on trying to learn how to not fall over that I didn’t think about anything else other than Sebastian and how he must be getting tired of teaching me.”
“That is good.”
Urs nodded. “That is very good. Will you be going out again?”
Kurt nodded. “Probably, if Sebastian drags me along again.”
“Good. You need to relax. You are too stressed.”
“I’m just worried about my test results.”
“The test results will come soon. Do not worry. You will have done well. We know you studied much. Our English scores have improved since you moved in with us.”
Kurt smiled softly. “I’m glad to hear that. At least I was good for something.”
“You are good for a lot of things, Kurt. Also, we have one request.”
“What?”
“If you leave in future without future knowledge, please send us an SMS… I mean text message.”
Reto asked, “Why must you have a different expression for SMS? It is short for Short Message Service. That is English.”
Kurt shrugged. “I don’t know. We just call it texting. I’m not the one who chose the term, so don’t ask me to explain why we say things the way we do. Maybe we just didn’t want to bother with the alphabet soup or abbreviations. The military does that enough already. Maybe we just decided to call it what we saw it as being. You know, texting or sending someone a text message makes much more sense than saying that you send them a short message service. How is that supposed to make sense?”
“I can see what you mean. Most do not know what it stands for, I think.”
Urs butted in, “This is all beside the point. Kurt, please tell us, if you are going out again. We wish to be informed where you are. We worry about you.”
“Then stop it.”
“We cannot. We do not wish to. We inform you when we will be out. Please do the same.”
“Fine. Whatever. Go ahead and ruin my good mood. I promise I’ll inform you guys.”
“Thank you.”
Reto cut in, “Now, tell us more what it was like.”
Kurt corrected, “More about what it was like.”
“Yes, yes. Please tell?”
Kurt proceeded to tell them about his day with Sebastian and the adventures of learning to snowboard. He didn’t need to tell them about his miniature break-down. They didn’t need to know that. It didn’t concern them. Still, it was nice to know that Sebastian hadn’t run away at the first hint of trouble. Maybe he actually did care about him a little. The idea filled him with a feeling of warmth.
No, he shouldn’t be thinking that way. That train of thought would only lead to more pain. He didn’t… he couldn’t bear more pain. Not so soon.
***
That night he dreamt of a new, good-looking transfer student who was gay. He dreamt that Sebastian left their fake relationship to be with the new guy without a second thought and, all of a sudden, he was all alone again.
Sebastian had looked him in the eye and told him that he meant nothing to him other than a good lay - and that even that was questionable, at times.
When he awoke, his pillow was wet from tears and his comforter from sweat.
Next Chapter