Finally he manages to get the door knob to turn, nearly dropping all the coffees in the process, having to scramble and move quickly through the door to keep everything balanced.

“Kurt? Blaine?” Sebastian calls out in annoyance as he moves into the kitchen placing the coffees on the table and dropping his bag.

Sebastian let’s his eyes travel over the mess still on the counter from the night before, wondering why Kurt hadn’t cleaned it all away like he usually did. Wonders briefly where Kurt is, since its Kurt’s day off and he’s usually bopping and singing around the apartment as he cleans. Shrugging off his coat, he throws it over the back of a kitchen chair before rolling up his sleeves. Glancing down he looks at his crisp white button up, the one Kurt had gotten him for his last birthday, and knew it wouldn’t survive dish duty.

Moving quickly through the shadowed apartment, Sebastian unbuttons his shirt as he walks, certain if he ruins the shirt, Kurt would have his balls, and not in the fun had by all way. He pulls the shirt from his shoulders, moving to the closet to throw it in the laundry basket Kurt keeps hidden from view.

The sound of the closet door opening is loud in the quiet of the room, echoing, and it takes Sebastian a moment to figure out why.

Most of the closet is empty.

Sebastian frowns in confusion looking at the multitude of empty hangers, the empty shoe rack. It takes a moment to process, a moment for him to understand that it’s Kurt that’s missing from their closet. Sebastian and Blaine’s things hang neatly in their side of the closet, the one they share since Kurt had so much more clothes than they did. Now… every item of Kurt’s prized clothing collection is gone. Empty hangers line the bars in the side of the closet that belongs to Kurt. Empty hangers.

Sebastian’s brain stutters, stops, gets caught on that word.

From the day he’d moved in there had never been empty closet space, the closet bulging at the seams from three fashion forward men living under the same roof. Now there is half a closet full of empty hangers.

And there’s that word again. The one that Sebastian can’t seem to wrap his mind around.

He knows in his gut that something is wrong. Something isn’t right and he can’t think straight enough to figure out what it is. Why there’s a closet full of…

Empty hangers.

He’s gripping the door frame of the closet with knuckles quickly turning white as realisation dawns, breaks, and tears through his mind. Taking a step back from the door, Sebastian stumbles, rights himself, turning swiftly towards Kurt’s side of the bed. He moves forward with purpose, pulling out the drawer and finding emptiness there too. Empty drawers, empty hangers, and Sebastian feels the world narrow down to these two facts.

Sebastian shakes his head, shakes the fear from his mind as he takes a deep breath, moves towards the bathroom. He knows that Kurt could theoretically give his clothes to goodwill so he could splurge and buy new ones without a guilty conscience. That he may have finished his book and given it away. That he might have gone on a cleaning spree during the afternoon alone and gotten rid of everything in the apartment. However Kurt had a few hundred dollars’ worth of creams, cleansers, and moisturizers on the bathroom counter.

He grips the door handle to the bathroom, taking deep breaths to keep the panic at bay before he pushes the door open.

The counter is clean.

The counter is clean and there isn’t a bottle in sight.

Sebastian feels his breath stutter, stop, his chest feels like it’s going to explode, and the panic takes him over before he’s even had time to brace himself. He slides to the floor, boneless, lost and staring at the empty counter as everything slides into place.

Empty.

Everything is empty and Kurt is gone. Sebastian knows he’s gone with surety because those bottles would have to be pried from Kurt’s cold dead fingers before he’d be parted from them.

Later Sebastian remembers blinking. Slow, rapid, confused blinking as he sat on the floor staring at the empty counter. His mind couldn’t process what he was seeing, what he wasn’t seeing, and the reality that was threatening to break through.

Sebastian felt a hand on his shoulder, glanced up quickly expecting to see eyes the colour of the ocean, envisaging the smile and laughter that would accompany the telling of the story about how he’d freaked out over Kurt going out for the afternoon… but met honeyed hazel instead. He couldn’t stop the sound of disappointment that escaped from his throat.

“Seb?” Blaine questioned uncertainly, fear lacing his gentle voice as he took in Sebastian’s posture. “Where’s Kurt, Seb?” Blaine asked softly.

Sebastian turned his face back towards the empty bathroom counter, knowing that it would be answer enough.

Blaine turned in the direction of Sebastian’s gaze and felt his eyes widen at the empty counter. His grip tightened on Sebastian’s shoulder for a moment before he moved quickly into the bedroom, checking the closet, out into the hall and into the living room to check for any evidence of Kurt.

He found none.

Kurt hadn’t even left a note.

He’d taken himself completely out of the apartment, their lives, gone without a trace as though he’d never lived there at all.

As though he’d never been a part of them at all.

Blaine made his way back through their bedroom, back to where Sebastian is still sitting on the floor, before hunching down, squatting in front of him.

“What happened? Did you guys have a fight?” Blaine asked gently, trying to keep his voice low so as not to startle his clearly panic stricken boyfriend.

“He wasn’t here when I got home. Neither of you were. I… I was going to do the dishes, and I was going to take my shirt off so I didn’t ruin it, because Kurt would get mad if I ruined it, it was the shirt he gave me for my birthday and he’d kill me if I ruined it… but he was gone, Blaine, all of him was gone.” Sebastian breathes the words out, not understanding what he’s saying, trying to get the words past stiff lips, trying to make Blaine understand that he’s not sure what’s happened.

Sebastian pauses for breath, closing his eyes, resting them for a moment before he opens them once more and turns his gaze on Blaine. “Why, Blaine? I don’t understand.” Sebastian murmured plaintively.

“Have you tried to call him? See where he is? What’s going on?” Blaine spoke low, voice gentle as Sebastian’s eyes glazed over, and panic makes his vision glassy.

“I didn’t even think. I didn’t…” Sebastian trails off as he fumbles for his phone in his pocket. After all the disappointments that day he’s sure if he can get Kurt on the phone that it will all be a misunderstanding, and Kurt’s just running errands, that he’s going to be home in a few minutes to explain the lack of him in the apartment.

Sebastian presses speed dial one and waits for the call to connect. Stomach dropping when the call goes straight to voice mail.

“Hello. You’ve reached Kurt Hummel. If this is about an audition please leave a message and I’ll get back to you at the earliest convenience.” There’s a pause, and a deep breath, before Kurt continues. “If this is… you,” he pauses delicately before drawing another breath the sound making the speaker on Sebastian’s phone crackle. “If this is you, then don’t call. Please.” Another soft sigh and the message ends.

“Kurt? I don’t know what’s going on, but call me baby. I’m worried.” Sebastian keeps his voice low, mellow, letting his concern lace the words. “Just… call me? Call Blaine? I don’t care which, just… let us know what’s going on?” Sebastian pleads before moving to hang up, at the last moment he presses the phone back to his ear. “I love you, babe. Come home.” Quickly pressing the disconnect button he stares at his phone mutely for a moment before glancing up and meeting Blaine’s eyes.

“I’m going to call Rachel, see if she can shed some light on the situation… or maybe Kurt’s actually there.” Blaine patted Sebastian on the shoulder absently, mind already preoccupied with conversations he could have with Kurt.

Pulling out his cell phone, Blaine pressed speed dial three and waited for Rachel to pick up. He let out a loud frustrated sound when Rachel’s voice mail kicked in after the second ring.

“Hi, you’ve reached Rachel Berry! Please leave a message! If this is Blaine or Sebastian, he’s not here, and wouldn’t tell me where he was going. Have a wonderful day!” Rachel’s voice chirped in his ear, the special message to Sebastian and himself making him frown in frustration.

“Well Rachel knows something. She changed her message to include us, to tell us she didn’t know where he’d gone. Which is utter poppy cock, by the way.” Blaine scowled at his phone before taking a deep breath.

“C’mon Seb, we’ve got some work to do.” Blaine pulled Sebastian to his feet, pulling him back out into the bedroom.

“Work?” Sebastian questioned, truly confused, “What type of work?”

“Well first we have to track down Kurt and then we have to figure out what the fuck is going on.” Blaine muttered, pulling out a clean shirt for Sebastian and thrusting it at him. “Sitting on the floor wallowing in self-pity that Kurt is gone isn’t going to actually bring him home. Where he belongs, or…” Blaine paused glancing up at Sebastian, “don’t you want him to come home?” Blaine questioned softly, fingers tingling, breath hitching as the thought fluttered and filled his mind.

“I don’t understand how you can be so calm.” Sebastian pulled the shirt over his head, slipped his arms through, and frowned fiercely at Blaine as he tried to get his trembling under control.

“I’m not calm. I’m terrified, but we have to actually figure something out before he’s so far gone he’s never coming home.” Blaine spoke quietly. “Do you want him to come home?” Blaine asked again baldly.

“Of course I want him home!” Sebastian burst out, lips quivering with the first sign of anger. “He shouldn’t have left in the first place!” Sebastian ground out as the first sparks of anger started to sift through him.

“Agreed. Now we just have to find him and convince him of that fact.” Blaine nodded decisively as he pulled Sebastian by his hand into the living room. “You phone everyone you can think of… all of our friends, his friends, his colleagues…” Blaine took a hitching breath. “I’ll phone Burt.”

Sebastian took a sharp inhalation of breath and pressed a quick hard kiss to Blaine’s lips.

“We’ll find him. We’ll bring him home. We have to.” Sebastian stated with utter certainty. A certainty he didn’t feel deep inside.