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Sebastian sat on the worn shingles and stared to the houses surrounding him. Sebastian loved this secluded spot ever since that time he snuck out of the window and onto the roof when he was about six. Something about just sitting here was so calming to him; it was a perfect escape from his life and the problems that came with it. Granted, the space seemed a bit tiny now that he was 17, but he still fit onto it and that was all that mattered. Plus, he could always use a bit of the space from the roof of the house opposite to his; there was no one living there anyway so who could it bother, really? One time he tried getting into the house when he was bored, but the windows were locked and he didn't think it was smart to break one of the glasses. There probably wasn't anything of interest inside anyway, only spiders and dust. Piles of dust. His nose prickled at the thought of that.
Sebastian had never shown this place to anyone, not his friends or his parents (who probably did know it was there, but whatever, that wasn't the point). It was a quiet and peaceful place just for him. Okay, let's repeat that. Just. For. Him.
That was, until they moved in.
Sebastian learned about it at dinner when his parents brought up the subject of the newlywed family with two sons moving into the house next to theirs. He didn't think much of it then. No, it wasn't until later, when he opened his window and climbed halfway onto the roof that an unexpected movement caught his eye. In the room above the roof of the other house was a boy who seemed to be unpacking judging by the way he went to different places in his room before returning to some boxes on his bed.
Sebastian pondered what he should do (because right now he was staring at the boy like a total creep) before he remembered that he still had one foot on the roof and the other in his room. Cursing at his apparent inability to think and move at the same time, he climbed back into his room before looking at the boy again who placed a plant on a shelf now.
Sebastian watched him some more before the boy suddenly stalked over to the window, opened it, and looked right at him.
Uh-oh.
“Why are you staring at me?”
Soooo he did notice him.
“Uhm, hi. I'm Sebastian, your new neighbor. And you are?”
The boy scrutinized him for a few seconds before apparently deeming him deserving of an answer. “I'm Kurt. Nice to meet you.”
Sebastian smirked at him. Kurt didn't look too bad, and he seemed to be about Sebastian's age. Maybe there was the possibility of hooking up some time. “Nice to meet you, too.”
Kurt raised an eyebrow and neither of them said anything for a while, until Kurt broke the silence. “Well, if that's all, then I would like to resume to my unpacking and I would very much like to not be stared at while doing so.” He slammed the window shut, cutting Sebastian off before he could come up with a reply.
What the hell was his problem?
Usually no one was this pissy when first meeting Sebastian. (Well unless you count that time the father of one of his conquests walked in on them and shouted at Sebastian for trying to corrupt his son, but really, it wasn't Sebastian's fault if his son didn't tell him he was into boys, too.) Sebastian figured that Kurt was probably just tired from the move.
So when he climbed onto his roof the next day because hey, some new neighbor won't stop Sebastian from using his favorite place, he didn't expect to meet an unfriendly Kurt yet again. An unfriendly Kurt, who was trying to clean his windows of from years of dust.
Kurt frowned when he saw Sebastian. “What are you doing here again?”
Sebastian chuckled. “I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I live here.”
When Kurt just grumbled something and went back to his panes, Sebastian took out the book he had brought with him, along with his glasses. But even though he loved J.K. to no end, he couldn't concentrate on Victor Krum showing off his amazing Quidditch skills. No, someone had to loudly scrub their window. Slightly annoyed, he put the book and the glasses away and looked at Kurt.
“So, how old are you?”
The only sign that Kurt had heard him was the deep, aggravated breath he took.
“Okay, do you mind telling me what I've done to you?”
Kurt cast him a glance before going on to the next pane. “I just don't want to talk.”
“Well, that's too bad because I have nothing to do right now besides talking, and seeing how you don't want to answer, this will probably become a terribly long monologue. Not saying that it will be boring because obviously nothing I say could bore anyone; I'm just that fascinating. Oh, a good topic, how fascinating I am. One of my favorites, I have to say. See,-”
“17.”
Sebastian smirked. “Oh, he talks.”
“Yeah. You can shut up now.”
“How absolutely charming we are again.”
Kurt rolled his eyes. “Only for you.”
“I'm flattered.”
They heard Sebastian's mom calling for him.
“As nice as this has been,” Sebastian said with a triumphant wink, “I have to go. See you, princess.”
Kurt scoffed incredulously as he watched Sebastian disappear back through his window.
Their relationship didn't really improve over the course of the next two weeks. Kurt wasn't willing to talk much and only answered when Sebastian really upped his 'getting on someone's nerves'- game. At least he knew now that Kurt was a singer, single, without any past relationships, he described his eye color as glasz, and his family moved here because the old apartment was too small for all of them. He seemed to hate talking to Sebastian, even though he sometimes started the conversations. Most of the times all he said to Sebastian was, “Get back in your room.” Not as if this was anything new for Sebastian. No, he knew what that was like, since his older brother had once again decided to visit.
See, once Michael sets foot into the Smythe house, he becomes the center of the world; for their parents at least. Michael here, Michael there, oh look how wonderful Michael is managing his life again. The only time Sebastian got attention when his brother visited was when his parents compared the two, usually ending with 'you should be more like him, Seb.'
Sebastian managed to get away from the rest of his family (not really a difficult task to be honest) and was now lying on his roof. He laid there for a long time thinking about all the things he he could do better than his brother, when a creak warned him that Kurt was opening his window.
“And yet again, there's an annoying meerkat outside my room.,” Kurt said. “How surprising.”
Sebastian turned his head and saw him leaning on the windowsill. Kurt didn't really climb out onto his roof; Sebastian suspected that he was afraid to fall.
“Shut it, princess. I don't want to hear your whining voice today.”
Kurt mockingly gasped. “What is happening? Have I finally found the key to not being victim to your seemingly endless mission to annoy me to death?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes before turning his head and looking up to the sky again.
Kurt furrowed his brow and cocked his head in confusion. “What, no snarky comeback?”
Sebastian closed his eyes. “Like I said, shut up.”
Silence followed his words until something very strange happened.
“Are you okay?”
Sebastian tensed up in surprise, but then he started to laugh. And man, did he laugh. No one ever asked Sebastian whether he was 'okay'. What made it even funnier was that Kurt Hummel was the one to ask, not his friends, not his parents, hell not even his hook-ups.
“Uhm, okay then. You seem... fine. I think. I'll leave you alone.”
“No, wait.” Sebastian calmed down a bit and grinned at Kurt.
“You're being kinda really creepy right now,” Kurt said.
Sebastian chuckled. “Sorry about that. You just... surprised me.”
Kurt still looked at him warily. “Anyway. are you okay? You didn't answer that.”
“Yeah, I'm fine, I guess. Nothing too serious.” Ah, the nice few moments came to a crashing halt and thoughts of Michael began creeping into his head again.
“So, would you like to, maybe, come in and watch a movie with me?” Kurt asked cautiously. “I was planning on watching Pacific Rim.“
Sebastian smirked, wondering if Kurt had some sort of emotion detector.
“Yeah, I could go for some giant robots smashing shit.”
An outsider would say that Kurt and Sebastian became friends, and Sebastian would agree, but he also thought that their friendship was kind of.... different. He didn't tell any of his other friends the things he told Kurt, he didn't want to spend as much time with them as he wanted to with Kurt, and he didn't want to kiss his friends as much as he wanted to kiss Kurt. Seriously, it was starting to become a real problem.
Whenever they laid next to each other on one of their beds, watching a movie Sebastian had to concentrate hard on not to leaning over and pressing a kiss on his cheek. Whenever they talked about their favorite books, songs, actors, etc. he had to keep reminding himself to look at Kurt's eyes and not his mouth. All of it aggravated him to no end and yet Sebastian somehow didn't mind at all. He didn't know what to do with himself anymore. He hadn't expected something like this to happen, and he had to keep reminding himself not to act on it. After all, he really was Sebastian Smythe, master of one night stands. Usually, if he wanted to hook up with someone, he would. But this was Kurt. Glasz-eyed Kurt with a snarky attitude to match Sebastian's; who asked him whether he was okay. And who was his friend.
One evening Sebastian found himself staring in horror at his calculus homework. He really needed to do something about his apparent attraction to Kurt.
“Having problems with something?”
He looked up at Kurt lying on Sebastian's bed who was actually supposed to be working on his own homework just like Sebastian.
“No, math actually isn't that difficult once you get the main parts.”
Kurt laughed. “Yeah, right. Sure it isn't. Keep on telling mere mortals that, you irritating nerd.”
Chuckling, Sebastian shook his head. Kurt was the only person he knew who could make 'irritating nerd' sound endearing. “I will, mere mortal. How's biology going?”
Kurt groaned. “Everything sounds the same and it's boring. Seriously, why do we get homework over the summer? Why? Tell me, Bas. I need to find a reason not to murder all of my teachers.”
Sebastian raised an eyebrow at him. “'Bas?'”
“Yeah, uhm, I can also not call you that if you don't like it. You're right, meerkat is perfectly fine.” Kurt's cheeks flushed more and more the longer he talked.
“No, you... you can call me Bas. It's... nice.” Sebastian cleared his throat awkwardly. This really was not the best moment to wonder whether Kurt's whole body flushed when he got embarrassed.
“Oh, okay then. Cool.” Kurt turned back to his homework, cheeks still a deep red.
Fuck.
Okay, just change topics and distract yourself. “So, how about we do something other than homework?”
“There... was actually something I wanted to ask you. But maybe-” He saw Kurt hide his head in his textbook. “Oh, to hell with that, there will never be a good time.” He was still not looking at Sebastian, and that really got him curious. “Okay, since you're somewhat of an expert, and I don't want to ask anyone from my family- what is kissing like? Just a general idea, is it really that good or...? Uuh, you know what, never mind. We can just forget this...”
Sebastian started grinning when he realised what Kurt got so worked up about. He couldn't believed he had never kissed anyone. Sure, he said he never had a boyfriend, but kissing? Come on.
“I could show you.”
Okay, maybe that had been a bit too much for poor innocent Kurt judging by the look of shock on his face. And when he thought about it, kissing Kurt probably wouldn't help with Sebastian's attraction to him.
The silence was dragging on too long, say something, come on, Seb.
“Ah, don't worry. I wouldn't kiss you.”
Oh. Ooooh. Fuck.
Many emotions seemed to play out on Kurt's face, before he decided on one. Anger.
“Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't know I was that unkissable. I better go and hide my hideous appearance so you don't have to suffer.”
Kurt stomped over to the window and climbed out onto Sebastian's roof. A bit late Sebastian realised that he probably should move and do something instead of just sitting there, staring.
“Wait! Kurt, come on, I didn't mean it like that.” He jumped up and climbed out of his window after Kurt, who was already opening the window to his own room.
“Then, pray tell me, Sebastian, how did you mean it?” Kurt turned back to Sebastian, eyes nearly as ice cold as his voice. But there was also hurt beginning to shimmer through, and Sebastian felt even worse about his words.
And really, how should he answer that? 'Actually I want to kiss you a lot but you seemed uncomfortable and I didn't want to ruin our friendship?' Yeah, right. That was absolutely perfect. But he also couldn't think of anything better. Meanwhile Kurt seemed to get more hurt by every second Sebastian didn't say anything.
“I didn't mean that you're unattractive. You aren't. I just realised that maybe the two of us kissing wouldn't be the best idea.”
There was silence between them before Kurt's gaze dropped to Sebastian's lips and he took a deep breath. “Why not?”
Suddenly, Sebastian remembered all the times he had wanted to kiss Kurt, and noticed something about them in that moment. He had wanted to kiss him, yes, but not necessarily have sex with him. This wasn't just about physical attraction to Kurt. This thought actually gave him an explanation.
“Because we might not want to do it for the same reasons.”
When Kurt didn't give him an answer, Sebastian took a step back and smiled. He could feel that his smile didn't reach his eyes, so he turned around before Kurt could pick up on it.
“Sebastian, I- I don't really mind if you are not romantically attracted to me. I would still like to try, if that is okay with you. I promise I won't become clingy or anything, if that's what you're afraid of.”
“Wait, what?” He turned back to Kurt. “You mean you like like me?” Sebastian closed his eyes and groaned internally. He did not just say that.
Kurt laughed nervously. “Uhm, yes? I thought that's what this was about?” Sebastian went back immediately and came to a halt in front of him. “Wait are you saying-?”
“Yes. I mean, I think. But probably, yes.” Sebastian couldn't yet say that he liked someone in a way like this, and he had only really realised it about a minute ago anyway. But he did know that he liked Kurt more than any of his random hook-ups. They stared at each other for a few agonizing moments before Sebastian couldn't take it anymore.
“Can I kiss you?”
“God,” Kurt breathed. “I thought you'd never ask.”