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Blaine excused himself to the restroom, leaving Kurt and Sebastian together at the table in the Lima Bean.
“When were you going to tell me you were back in Ohio?” Kurt asked, obviously aggravated.
“When were you going to tell me you’re dating a douche?” Sebastian sassed back.
“What? Blaine’s a perfect gentleman.”
“Your idea of 'gentleman' is in need of help,” he retorted.
“Whatever. So, Scandals, really? Could you pick a lamer place to go? There are decent places in Columbus.”
“Not in the mood to drive that far tomorrow. Maybe next weekend.”
“Why are you back? I thought you were staying in Paris?”
“I thought you were coming in July?”
“Okay, so I’ve been an absolutely terrible best friend. My life has been such a crapfest since you left I couldn’t bring myself to tell you half of it.”
“Why didn’t you come?” The hurt was evident in his voice.
“I never told my dad the plan. I never showed him my mom’s letter.”
Sebastian’s intense gaze softened a bit. “Why?”
“He had a heart attack and ended up in a coma. You knew that. I ended up at Dalton. That was far enough away. I was afraid to tell him my plan.”
“I thought you ditched me. When you didn’t show up in July, I got so mad. I waited for you for hours. I called, but got a ‘this number is not in service’ recording.” He huffed. “Four months, and I haven’t heard a word from you.”
“I’m sorry. When Finn and Carole’s phone contracts were up, my dad put all of our phones on a new plan together, and I ended up with a new number.”
He handed Kurt his phone. “Put your new number in. You have a lot to tell me.”
Kurt put his number in quickly and handed it back before Blaine could see. “This weekend, okay?”
He took his phone back and changed Kurt’s name in his contacts. “Okay.”
Blaine came back and sat down just as Sebastian slipped his phone back into his pocket.
“I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you two tomorrow evening,” Sebastian said as he got up from the table.
Blaine smiled excitedly, “Yeah. We’ll see you there.”
“Why are you hitting on my boyfriend?” Kurt asked as Sebastian came back up to the bar for some more water while Blaine was looking through the choices in the jukebox.
“Payback’s a bitch, but mostly because he’s a douche and I want you to see that. You know he didn't tell me you existed until you walked up to the table yesterday.” He finished off his water, plopping the glass on the bar top a little harder than necessary, and headed back towards Blaine.
Dave walked up and sat down next to Kurt when his back was turned. They talked for a while. Kurt assured him that he would have never told anyone.
“Your boyfriend has a big mouth. His little confrontation on the stairwell pushed me too far that day. I was a jackass to you and I admit that now, but if anyone had been paying attention, your boyfriend could have outed me right then and there. One phone call to my mom and I could have been next in line for conversion therapy. I didn’t accept myself then, but hell if I’d have wanted to be sent to something like that and come out hating myself more than I already did.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry. He said he’d come with me to talk to you—that we’d help you see that you weren’t alone, so maybe you would stop hurting me.”
“Look, I know I was awful, and I don’t expect you to ever be able to forgive me for that, but did you ever think about what would happen to a guy like me getting outed at McKinley? Everyone knew you were gay. They covered up around you. You waited to shower until after everyone else left the showers. They had openly changed and showered around me for years. You were on the team for part of one season. I had been with them for years. I wouldn’t have gotten just a dumpster toss or a slushie to the face.”
Kurt paled, hearing Dave’s fears, but explained his own mindset at the time. “I admit that I wasn’t thinking about it that way. I was honestly trying to make it through the day without broken ribs from how hard you were shoving me into lockers. It’s hard to take your aggressor’s point of view sometimes.”
“I get that. I do. But your boyfriend should have not opened his mouth on that stairwell. I understand that you were afraid and wanted me to stop. But that wasn’t the answer.”
“I know,” Kurt readily admitted, the guilt evident on his face.
Dave looked away and took a swig of his beer. “I’m just trying to get through high school without rumors at this point.”
“Why come here? Seems like a dangerous idea.” He glanced back towards the dance floor and saw Sebastian dancing with Blaine. “What if one of these guys knows your dad or your mom?”
“I’ve been coming for a while and all of the guys have been really supportive, but you have a point. I guess anyone from her church could show up here trying to put the fear of God into the patrons to help them ‘see the light’. If someone recognized me, it could be bad. But I turned 18 this fall and she can’t force me into conversion therapy anymore. Football’s almost over for the year, so if I’m going to get any offers from that, it will be soon. After that, if she kicks me out, so be it. I’ll just move out. Without any scholarship offers, it will be community college for me anyway. I might as well go to community college somewhere far away from here.”
Kurt nodded in understanding. “Well, I wish you the best.”
“Thanks.” He tipped his beer up and finished it off, sliding it towards the bartender, and ordered another.
Kurt got up, leaving his empty glass behind, and joined Blaine and Sebastian on the dance floor. He shimmied in between them, causing Sebastian to laugh and start dancing around them. Not too much later, Kurt realized that Blaine had had more than the one beer that Sebastian had given him. He corralled him off the dance floor, leaving Sebastian behind, and managed to get Blaine out the door, barely.
“This is the best night of my life,” Blaine slurred.
“Okay.” Kurt rolled his eyes, annoyed that Blaine had gotten drunk.
“It’s the best night of my life,” he repeated, stumbling despite Kurt attempting to support him through the parking lot.
“I wanna live here. I wanna live here. And I just wanna make art and help people.”
Kurt laughed at his nonsense. “You could certainly help people make fires with your breath.”
“Hey, come on. I only had one beer.”
“Sure, you did.”
“Hey, kiss me,” Blaine requested as they got close to the car.
Kurt opened the back door of the car. “Oh, no, no, no,” he said, rebuffing Blaine’s request.
“Kiss me. Come on,” he insisted.
Kurt ignored him, opened the back door, and attempted to maneuver him into the backseat. “You’re riding in the back. Come on. Lay down.”
Kurt struggled to get Blaine into the backseat, even though it shouldn’t have been that hard since they had come in Blaine’s car and it wasn’t as if they had to climb up into it to get in.
“Alright, alright,” Blaine said, acquiescing and getting in.
“Less likely to throw up that way.”
As soon as Blaine was completely in the backseat, he pulled Kurt down on top of him and started kissing his neck. He wrapped his arms around Kurt, preventing him from getting up easily. Blaine pulled Kurt's shirt loose and stuck his hand on Kurt’s back.
Kurt struggled against him. “Okay, okay. Oh. Alright!” he said, his displeasure obvious in his tone. He did not want Blaine to touch him that way. “Blaine!” he said emphatically to get his attention.
Blaine let go with his other hand and moved it to the side of Kurt’s face.
“Alright! Cold hands!” Kurt squawked. He pushed up and back from Blaine a bit.
“Hey, Kurt, let’s just do it. I… I want you.”
Kurt struggled to keep Blaine’s hands off of him. “No. No!” Kurt’s voice got louder as he insistently refused Blaine’s advances.
“I want you so bad.” Blaine managed to get his hand behind Kurt’s neck and pull him forward again.
“No!” he repeated emphatically.
Blaine got his other hand behind his neck and pulled him down onto him again.
“No, Blaine. No! Stop it” Kurt broke free from one hand.
“I know you wanted to do it in a field of lilacs with Sting playing in the background and all that. But who cares where we are? It’s all about us, right?”
Kurt had managed to get free from both of Blaine’s hands around his neck, but he was still struggling to keep Blaine’s hands off of him. “Right, it’s about us!” He finally managed to get free from Blaine completely and backed out of the car. “Which is why I don’t want to do it on a night that you spent half of dancing with another guy and that you're sober enough to remember it the next day!” Kurt's voice was raised in frustration and panic.
Blaine slid over to follow him out of the backseat. “Why are you yelling at me?”
He looked Blaine directly in the eyes. “Because I’ve never felt less like being intimate with someone, and either you can’t tell, or you just don’t care.”
Blaine got the rest of the way out of the backseat and started walking away from the car.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m sorry if I’m trying to be spontaneous and fun.” Sarcasm dripped from his words as he threw his arms up in the air melodramatically about 10 feet from the back of the car.
Kurt was panting and didn’t know what to say.
Blaine put his arms down and put his hands on his hips. “I think I’m just gonna walk home.”
Kurt slammed the back door of the car and got in the driver’s seat, then got right back out, shut the car door, and took off after him. “Blaine, stop,” he called out.
Blaine quit walking and turned back around. “Why?”
“Because it's too dark for you to walk. You drove here, and I have your keys.” He held them out for Blaine to see.
“Good point.” He started walking toward his car.
Kurt clicked the lock on the remote. “Get in the passenger side of the back seat.”
“Why?”
“Do it or I’m locking your car and calling you a cab.”
“Fine.” He opened the back door and got inside.
Kurt walked back into Scandals and straight up to Sebastian. “Did you buy him more alcohol?”
“No, Kurt. Just the one, why?”
“Because—never mind. Just please follow me to his house and help me get him inside. He picked me up. Yeah, I don’t drink, but he was supposed to be sober at the end of the evening, not drunk.”
“Okay.” Sebastian walked to his car and started it up, then pulled to where he could wait for Kurt.
Kurt got in Blaine’s car. “Let me see your driver’s license.”
“Why?”
“I need your address.”
He pulled his wallet out and handed it to Kurt, who put the address in his phone to get directions. He pulled out and Sebastian followed him all the way to Blaine’s house and parked on the street. He rolled the passenger window down when he saw Kurt approaching.
“I’ll try to get him in by myself. Just wait for me.”
“Okay.”
Blaine was standing by his front door when Kurt turned back around. He noted that he was a lot steadier than he had seemed not more than 15 minutes before and realized that Blaine seemed fine when he had walked away from the car, something he hadn’t noticed at the time.
“I’m going to unlock your door. You’re going to go inside and go to bed after you drink a glass of water.” Kurt unlocked the door, opened it quietly, handed Blaine his keys, and pulled the door shut. He jogged straight to Sebastian’s car.
“What is going on?”
“So, you were right.” Tears were flowing down Kurt’s cheeks. “Come home with me, please?”
“Sure.” Sebastian started driving. “I know you moved. Where?”
“Whitman Avenue.”
Sebastian adjusted his course a bit. “So, what was I right about? And why are you crying?”
“Blaine being a douche. And I’m crying because he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“I’m going to castrate him.” Sebastian slowed to stop, so he could turn around.
“No, you’re not. You’re going to be my best friend just like always, even though I’ve been the worst best friend for the last five months and a pretty lame one all last year.”
“Okay.” He sped back up and continued towards Kurt’s house. “Does that mean you’re going to show Uncle Burt the letter and you’re going to go back to France with me?”
“We’ll talk about it, okay? I’m not really in a good place to talk about that right now. But we’ll go home and you’ll stay with me, right?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And you won’t tell my dad what happened tonight. That is not a question. It is a statement.”
“Why not?”
“Because you want me to come to France with you.”
“Fine. I’ll keep quiet.” He changed the subject, not wanting to upset Kurt further. “Did you not audition for West Side Story?”
“Of course, I auditioned. You know how much I love the musical.”
“Blaine said he’s Tony. I just assumed you must be too busy doing something else to have time to be in the school play.”
“Oh. He’s a junior and all of the rest of the guys told me that they wouldn’t audition for Tony since I needed it for my CV to get into college. Our musical last year got canceled at the last minute. Long story. I’ll tell you some other time. And we didn’t have one the year before either, which you already knew. I auditioned for Tony, but I was too feminine according to the directors. They asked him to audition for the role, and he went ahead and did. They gave him the role. I’m Krupke.”
Sebastian laughed. “Wait, you’re serious?”
“Yep.”
Sebastian turned onto Whitman Avenue. “Which house?”
“You can see my Navigator in the driveway.” Kurt pointed. “Up there on the right.”
Sebastian pulled in behind the Navigator.
He and Kurt went up to the door. Kurt unlocked it and let Sebastian step inside first. When they walked into the living room, they found Burt and Carole sitting on the couch, both reading.
Carole put her book down and looked up.
Burt lowered the newspaper he was looking through. “Sebastian! Long time, no see.”
“It has been a while, Uncle Burt.”
Carole looked confused but offered a friendly smile.
“I didn’t know you were back in Ohio.”
“I’ve only been here a couple of weeks.”
“Well, welcome back,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Carole introduced herself, “I’m Carole, Kurt’s stepmother. It’s nice to meet you, Sebastian.”
“You too,” he responded cheerfully.
“Sebastian’s staying the night, Dad. We’ll be in my room if you need anything.”
“Fine, fine. See you around, Sebastian.”
Sebastian followed Kurt, who practically ran up the stairs to his room.
A half-hour later, they had both showered, changed into pajamas, and were lying in Kurt’s bed on their backs in the dark.
“So, spill. I left right before we started 10th grade, and you were supposed to come after school let out in July this past summer, but you never showed up. You stopped writing and you stopped calling me.”
“You know all of the craziness that was sophomore year. Junior year was worse.”
“I know. You told me about it, but I think you left out a lot of details, many of which I have gathered from the Warblers, namely Nick and Jeff, who seem to be the de facto leaders of the Kurt Hummel Fan Club. So, that’s how I found out your boyfriend is a douche.”
“You’ll have to explain that to me, but I’ll fill in the details on the other things I didn’t tell you. I really am sorry.”
“I’m not sure that I forgive you yet. You’ve never shut me out like you have since I left. It sucks. I like France well enough, I suppose. But I was only supposed to be alone there until you were 18 and could come without any problems. Somehow, you gave up on me and our friendship and our plans. It really hurt. I missed you.”
“I missed you too. I think the longer we were apart, the more I just gave up. I had bought the ticket ages ago. I canceled the flight and used the refund money to put toward my tuition secretly. I was going to have to drop out and go back to McKinley right after midterms. I had put so much work into doing well at Dalton. It was going to make transferring to a school in France easier in the long run because the classes at Dalton are so much better. I don’t even want to rehash it. I ended up back at McKinley before the end of March. I had no ticket, and I used the money I made at the shop over the summer to pay back the loan my dad had taken out for me to stay at Dalton as long as I did.”
Sebastian sighed loudly. “You could have gotten the money from your grandparents or even mine, and you knew that.”
“You know how my dad is. He would have been really upset with me if I had done that.”
“Were you ever going to call me?”
“I don’t know. I figured you hated me for what I did. I ruined everything. Now, it’s October, and it's too late to fix anything I’ve messed up. And now I have to break up with Blaine and face everyone at school. And ugh.” Kurt pulled his pillow over his face.
“Hey!” Sebastian snatched the pillow. “Things may suck, but suffocating yourself isn’t the answer. I might be pissed at you, but I did not come all the way back to Podunk, Ohio to retrieve my best friend just to let him suffocate himself in bed next to me.”
“Fine.” Kurt plopped the pillow across his thighs and then pulled it back up and put it under his head. “There. No suffocating myself.”
“Much better.” He flopped back on his back again. “You’re coming back to France with me.”
“You’re not staying at Dalton?”
“Not unless I have to.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you’ll come back with me like we had planned for YEARS, then I won’t have to stay at Dalton. But if you’re not going to come with me, then I’m staying. You clearly need me. You have a douche for a boyfriend, a back-stabbing harridan for a supposed best friend, and a former best friend who dropped you like a hot coal when you didn’t want to be her newest convert. Sebastian elbowed him in the ribs. “Just admit it. Without me, your life’s a train wreck.”
Kurt turned and faced him, not really able to see him clearly with only the light of the moon shining in the window. “I know you’re teasing me, but it really is. I've missed you so much. I tried to be myself. I tried to be more acceptable. I tried being a good prep-school boy. I’ve tried to be a good boyfriend. And obviously, I suck at all of those things. You’re the only one who’s ever just liked me for me.”
“That just shows my superior intellect and their total lameness.”
“So you don’t hate me?”
“Would I have flown nine hours and enrolled at Dalton if I hated you?”
“Why didn’t you just come straight here when you got to Ohio? Well, to the shop, I guess, since you didn’t have my new address.”
“I’ve only been here two weeks. And I thought YOU were at Dalton, so I did go straight to where I thought you were. Somehow in the dwindling correspondence between us, you failed to mention that you had transferred back to McKinley. After I got here, I had to go to class and get caught up. But I’m here now. And I’m taking you back to France with me, even if it takes me until Christmas to do it.”
Kurt sighed. “Why do you care so much?”
“Because I do. It’s late. You need to break up with Mr. Hair Gel.”
“You’re Mr. Bossy Pants.”
“Hey, I’m letting him get away without being castrated. Breaking up with him is generous compared to what I wanted to do to him.”
“You just want me to text him and break up with him?”
“Seems feasible to me. I don’t know why he deserves a face-to-face, full-of-sorrow, breakup speech from you.”
“Because it seems really mean to text someone to break up with them.”
“What he did was a whole lot more mean. Just because you got away doesn’t change what he tried to do. If somebody shoots a gun at someone, and a third person wearing a bulletproof vest steps in front of the bullet, it doesn’t change the fact that the person pulling the trigger fired a shot at the intended victim. Just because he didn’t succeed doesn’t change his intent.”
“You’re right. I guess it’s just because we excuse people’s behavior when they’re drunk.”
“But people who choose to consume mind-altering substances are making a choice. And they’re still responsible for their actions while under the effects of those mind-altering substances.”
“I know.”
“So?”
“So, I should break up with him,” Kurt admitted defeatedly.
“So, do it. If you’d feel better telling him, then call him. And leave a text after you hang up in case he’s too drunk to remember that you called.”
“I can’t. I can’t be that person. That’s not me.” He thought for a minute. “I’ll text him to meet me before school.”
“I can live with that.”
Kurt sighed but relented. “Okay.” He picked up his phone, sent Blaine a text, and reset his alarm for earlier the next morning before putting his phone back on the shelf next to the bed.
“You skirted around things in your emails before you quit writing altogether.”
“You’re right. I did. When your dad was elected State’s Attorney General, and you moved to Columbus after the 8th grade, I started hiding things from you. We talked, but I didn’t tell you most of it. I couldn’t. I couldn’t say the words out loud or write them down. I kept my head up and continued to remind myself that I would be leaving when I turned 18. It kept me going. Then, after freshman year, you went to live with your grandparents in Paris. When things got so much worse so quickly, between my dad nearly dying, everyone shunning me for not believing in God, and Karofsky threatening to kill me—I just kind of checked out. I gave up.”
Sebastian listened carefully, not interrupting.
“When I had to change schools, I lost my income at the shop. I started using my savings to pay for gas to come to visit my dad. I told you that I canceled my ticket and used the money to attempt to stay at Dalton for the rest of the spring, but when the bullying was supposedly under control, I came back. I went back to work. I paid off the loan my dad had taken out by working as many hours as I could all summer long. I covered for everyone’s vacations and still worked my own shifts. I mostly stopped writing back about the time I canceled my ticket. I tried to just send the good things, so you wouldn’t worry. I … " He refocused. "Then, Blaine kissed me out of nowhere, and it felt like something good was finally happening. And if I wasn’t going to get the future I had planned, I’d think of a new one. I switched my focus to New York. Although, that’s as likely as Paris was. But it got Rachel off my back, and pretending can be fun. You know—everyday acting.”
Sebastian listened as Kurt told him the full story of Karofsky, Burt’s heart attack, more on Karofsky who became Dave, Finn, Carole, Blaine, Dalton, and more Blaine.
Once Kurt finished, Sebastian said, “Obviously, you are still leaving something out.”
“I don’t think so.”
“At what point did you lose your spine? You failed to mention that event in the narrative of how you let a douche kiss you after all of the crap he put you through. And not only that, you agreed to be his boyfriend after he kissed you with no more permission than Karofsky had. Maybe you failed to mention a concussion? Brain damage?”
“BAS!!” Kurt huffed.
“I’m serious. How did you go from being my outrageously, fabulous, slightly crazy but in a good way, take-no-crap, best friend to a guy willing to sway in the background while the guy he liked treated him like a pet project? You are no one’s pet project, Kurt Eli Hummel!”
Kurt reached up and wiped tears running down his face. “Thank you.”
“Of course. We’ve been best friends our whole lives, and just because you obviously had some kind of seriously messed up year doesn’t change that, but things are going to change. You’re going to kick yourself back into gear and make some choices. You can stay at McKinley for the rest of the semester if you want, but you have to figure out how to graduate early. We can go to Paris as soon as you can graduate, and I can finish out my last semester in Paris. Or you can come to Dalton and be my roommate so we can finish out the semester or the year there together. But staying at McKinley for the rest of the year seems really useless.”
It finally dawned on Kurt that Sebastian had missed curfew at Dalton. “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for staying here?”
“Nope. I’m 18. I enrolled myself at Dalton as an international student using my address in France. I don’t have to adhere to the curfew. I just can’t go back in the building after the night lock-down, not until it opens the next morning.”
“Does your dad even know that you’re here?”
“Nope. After I told him I was gay, he didn’t want me to reflect badly on him and ruin his political career and sent me off to my grandparents. Why would I talk to him?”
“I just wondered if things had gotten any better.”
“Not at all. I haven’t talked to him since the day he had me pack up anything that mattered to me and took me to the airport to put me on a plane to France.”
“How have you been? We’ve been talking about me this whole time.”
“I’m fine. My grandparents are in good health, as are yours. They miss you too, you know? I didn’t know that you had been shutting them out until you just told me all of that stuff tonight.”
“I just couldn’t bear to tell them the truth. I mean they lost my mom and yours, who they treated like their own, just like your grandparents did with my mom. I just told them good things and sent them photos of my drawings and outfits and recordings of me singing. I had hoped they’d think I was okay and they’d be happier that way. They don’t need more sadness in their lives.”
“We’ve all had more than our share of sadness, but the accident was ten years ago. They’ve put their lives back together.”
“I get it. I still can’t bring myself to tell them most of it. They just don’t need to know.”
“That’s your choice, and I get it. I’m not going to tell them either. Honestly, I’d probably do the same, now that I really think about it.”
“It’s hard to believe that it’s been ten years. I miss her and Aunt Adelaide.”
“I miss them both too.” After a few minutes of silence, Sebastian changed the subject back to the current issues. “I’ll go with you to meet Blaine. I’ll wait outside—”
Kurt interrupted him. “No way. When my alarm goes off in the morning, you can get up and drive back to Dalton. You’re coming back tomorrow evening with the rest of the Warblers to watch the show, I’m assuming.”
“Yes, of course, I am. Even though it’s ridiculous that you aren’t Tony. Trent’s really hyped up about it. I think he might promise to be Blaine’s slave if he’d come back to Dalton. There’s no way he would miss Blaine’s opening night.”
“Trent is sweet, but he might as well be named Pip #1.”
Sebastian’s laugh was practically a roar. “Oh, my God. I knew it. The real Kurt is still alive and well, even if jocks and prep school guys in blazers nearly subdued him.”
Kurt shoved him playfully.
“Hey, don’t push me out of bed. Just because I’m right and we both know it is no reason to make me sleep on the floor.” Sebastian repositioned himself comfortably in the bed to find Kurt lying on his side facing him again.
“I would never. There’s a perfectly good couch down in the basement.”
Sebastian snorted but didn’t lose his focus. “After the show, you can introduce me to all of the people who’ve been treating you like dirt so I give them a verbal lashing. I’m also going to have words with Puck and Artie. They’re on my shit list for how they’ve treated you. I’ve known Artie since we were six. He’s going to get an earful about effeminophobia. And Puck? I might just kick his ass myself. Just because he got buff over the summer before high school did not give him the right to start bullying people who had been kind to him before.”
“He’s bigger than you. You haven’t seen him since we were 14. Plus, he quit. No use in yelling at him now that he’s being decent.”
“You have a point, but that doesn’t hold true for Artie.” He could barely make out Kurt’s outline from the faint light coming from the window. He could hear him sniffling.
Kurt turned over, pulled a few tissues out of the box on the shelf next to the bed, and wiped his nose. “I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me? I really thought you’d hate me. I hated myself. I thought you’d be better off without me.”
“Hey, stop. I could never be better off without you. You’ve really let these losers get to you.”
Kurt wiped his eyes. His thoughts went back to earlier in the evening. “Blaine spent the whole summer working at Six Flags and he transferred to McKinley because he said that he couldn’t stand to be away from the person he loved. I don’t even know what to think now. If he loves me, what was earlier tonight about?”
“So, I take it that the two of you have never …”
“Definitely not. We dated for a few weeks before I came back to Lima. Then he left for Chicago at the end of May. He came back the week school started. So, I guess of the seven months we’ve dated, we were doing short-distance dating for two months with him at Dalton and me here. And then we were apart for almost three of those months, so long-distance at that point.” He paused and thought about how things had been at McKinley and sighed. “And after he transferred, it’s been like when we were at Dalton together.”
“What does that mean?”
“For the last almost two months at McKinley, the most couple-like thing he does is talk to me by my locker sometimes. Half the time, he doesn’t even sit with me in Glee or at lunch.”
“Look, I know you’ve fallen in love with him, or whatever, but he’s not a good guy. He’s an attention hog.”
“I know. Obviously, I know. He’s Tony and I’m not. But until tonight, he’s been a gentleman.”
Sebastian snorted. “Did you even listen to the things you told me?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m going to go downstairs and ask Uncle Burt about your head injury.” He started to get up.
“Stop, please, Bas. Stay with me.” He grabbed Sebastian’s arm. “Explain what you mean.”
“Flirty duets? Watching movies alone with him? Coffee dates? All for months? And then he serenades someone else for Valentine’s Day? He French kisses your supposed best friend? And then goes out with her after had turned you down? Then when he thought he might lose his Number One Fan, he had an epiphany. Really? Tell me ten things you know about him that don’t include movies or music he likes.”
“He likes raspberry-scented hair gel. He seems to dislike socks and likes to wear pants that are too short. He has a penchant for very fitted polo shirts and bow ties.”
Sebastian looked him in the eyes, despite the darkness. “You know that’s not what I mean. What are his parents’ names and what do they do?”
Kurt didn’t answer.
“Alright. Does he have any brothers or sisters and what are their names?”
Kurt said nothing.
“How could he just suddenly enroll at McKinley? Did he already live in Lima?”
“Actually, I hadn’t been to his house before tonight. I had to get his address from his driver’s license. I was teasing him about transferring to McKinley. Obviously, he lives in the house we dropped him off at tonight. I guess he lived there before? I don’t honestly know.”
“It doesn’t even matter. You’re going to break up with him tomorrow morning, right? You said you didn’t want to do it via text or over the phone, so in-person it is.”
“Why are you pushing so hard?”
“Because you matter to me. You’re important to me. I flew here because I care. I missed you. I love you. I have since before I can honestly even remember. It’s been me and you since we were babies. We made plans remember? So many plans.”
“I remember. We need to get some sleep. It’s really late. I’m meeting him before school and I can’t miss any classes tomorrow or I won’t be able to be in the musical tomorrow night.”
Sebastian sighed. “Fine. I’ll drive back to Dalton early in the morning. I’ll pack everything I need to study for my midterms, and I’ll bring enough clothes back for the weekend. I’ll call out sick Friday morning. I’ll do all of my homework while you’re at school.”
“I’m really sorry, Sebastian. I’ve always loved you too. At some point, I stopped loving myself and just gave up on what we’d planned.”
“Well, I’m here to put a stop to the nonsense. You’re worth it. I would have come earlier, but I had to wait to turn 18 to leave on my own. You're four months older than me, which you used to love to lord over me.”
Kurt chucked. “I did.” He reached out and squeezed Sebastian’s hand quickly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. The first step is already set in motion. We’ll work on the rest.”
“Yes, my liege,” Kurt sassed.
“That’s better.” Sebastian chuckled as he turned over to get comfortable to sleep.