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It was Sunday night and Sebastian was busily unpacking after yet another weekend at home. He had only been at NYU for a month but he had already been home twice. His parents kept coming up with excuses to send him plane tickets: his dad's promotion party (which had been painfully stuffy and boring) or his grandparents' fiftieth wedding anniversary party (which he had enjoyed in spite of himself). He was pretty sure that the real reason they kept bringing him home was that they missed their baby and were not adjusting well to empty-nesting. Sebastian loved his folks, and he liked going home, but he was worried that if he kept going home so much he wasn't going to have time for his homework as the semester progressed. Or for a social life!! He had always been outgoing and friendly but he hadn't made many friends here yet because he was always gone when people were hanging out!
Sebastian had only been in the room for a couple of minutes when it hit him that someone was playing music really loudly next door. By the time he had been there for half an hour he had realized two things about whoever was playing it: they were upset, and they had made a playlist with only four songs on it and it was playing on repeat... By the third time "It Must Have Been Love" came on he was feeling sorry for the guy. By the fourth times through “Everybody Hurts” and "Say Something" he was getting a little tired of the playlist. But by the sixth time "Nothing Compares to You" started he couldn’t handle it anymore.
Sebastian rapped sharply on his neighbor's dorm door and waited.
There was no response.
He knocked again.
Still nothing. But the music was making him crazy. So after the third knock he tried the door handle. It was unlocked, so he slowly opened the door to reveal a tableaux of tragedy. His neighbor, a slender man with mussed hair and tear-streaks marring his otherwise lovely fair skin was stretched out on the bed. There were crumpled tissues heaped in a small trash can near the bed, and more than a few scattered around on the floor near it. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was moving, and it only took a moment before Sebastian realized that he was singing along with Sinead O’Connor. In perfect pitch. And his voice was...
“Wow,” Sebastian whispered without thinking.
The guy’s eyes flew open and he hastily wiped at his face before giving Sebastian a world-class bitch stare.
“Who are you?”
“Oh, hi,” Sebastian stammered. “I’m Sebastian, I live next door…”
“Why are you in my room?” The man demanded with a glare, and oh, wow, his eyes were a stunning shade of sharp blue.
“Your playlist,” Sebastian explained as he regained his composure, “is a little sparse, and a lot loud, and I’m tired of it.”
“I am dealing with a break-up of epic proportions here,” Kurt retorted. “My forever soulmate boyfriend lasted a whopping four weeks of long-distance before he cheated on me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” The blue-eyed man glared at him patronizingly.
“I’m Sebastian,” Sebastian repeated, reaching out his hand.
“Kurt,” the other responded, cooly taking his hand and shaking it as briefly as civility allowed.
“Look, I’m sympathetic to the need for catharsis,” Sebastian said, “But can I suggest some other songs for today’s soundtrack? Something a little less depressing?”
“I am basically dying here,” Kurt said pointedly. “My heart has been thrown on the ground and stomped on. My soul has been torn into tiny shreds. I don’t want happy music.”
"I’m not suggesting happy music,” Sebastian clarified. “May I?" he asked, reaching for the iPod dock. Kurt eyed him warily, but moved his head in a slight nod. Sebastian pulled his thumb across the screen, rapidly selecting the song before setting his iPod into the dock with a click. As the opening piano chords began he saw recognition flicker across Kurt's face.
"C'mon. Sing with me! This one will be good for you," Sebastian urged, pulling Kurt to his feet. With a heavy melodramatic sigh, but the beginnings of a smile and a twinkle in his eye, Kurt straightened his vest and ran his fingers through his hair in a vague attempt to tame it. Then they both joined Gloria Gaynor in a truly epic rendition of "I Will Survive."
“Break-ups suck, I know,” Sebastian said as the song finished, but Kurt crumpled against him and began sobbing again. Sebastian wrapped his long arms around his neighbor, which might have been weird except that it was also the obvious thing to do in the moment. “But I’ve got a playlist full of Adele and Whitney that might help turn this day around.”
Kurt pulled back from the suddenly-awkward hug, straightening his clothing and clearing his throat. “Adele?”
Sebastian nodded.
“I could go for some Adele…”
A smile crept across Sebastian’s face. “Excellent. But first will you let me take you to get some dinner? Because…” he glanced around the room again… “I’m pretty sure that you don’t have any food in here and the dining hall is only open for twenty more minutes.”
Kurt grabbed a tissue and blew his nose and tossed the tissue toward the trash can. (The tissue missed and landed on the floor.) “Okay.”
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After a hurried and unmemorable dinner at the dorm cafeteria, Sebastian followed Kurt back to his dorm room. It didn't seem like a good idea to leave him alone yet. They belted out a few better-off-without-you songs, but after a while Kurt ended up back on his bed, curled in the fetal position with his head in Sebastian’s lap. Sebastian rubbed Kurt’s back and made occasional suggestions.
“Wanna watch some TV?” (Kurt didn’t.)
“I actually have a bottle of vodka hidden in the back of my closet...” (“My last experience with alcohol went really badly.”)
“I hear it’s not really that expensive to hire an assassin...” (Kurt snorted at that one.)
Eventually Kurt pulled himself to a sitting position, and scooted over so that he could turn and face Sebastian.
“Thanks for being so nice to me today. I haven’t really made friends here yet, and I’m sure I’ve been terrible company but it has been really nice to not be alone today.” He smiled wanly, no longer trying to pretend that his face wasn’t tear-streaked or his nose running.
“Actually, it’s been my pleasure, Kurt,” Sebastian answered earnestly. “I hadn’t really made friends here yet either. And I was pretty bummed about it. So I’m glad I came over today, even if the context was awkward.”
Sebastian hesitated before voicing his next thought, but decided that the whole day had been weird enough that he might as well.
“Maybe I can come over again some time…?”
Kurt smiled, possibly the first real genuine smile he’d had all day. “I’d like that,” he said.