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Sebastian spent a shocking amount of his developmental life doing one thing, and doing it well: Bullshitting.
He lied nonstop as a kid. About things he’d done, things he hadn’t done. He grew into a teenager who was an expert bullshitter who would waltz into one new school after another, and present a whole new list of life experiences, if only to try them on for a year. He told people that “Mrs. Doubtfire” was based on his mom’s family. He told people that he used to be a pro figure skater, but he gave it up. He wore fake glasses for a year, telling everyone who would listen about his prescription.
It felt like karma, then, that a lie about his experience with threesomes should land him in such hot water. A similar lie landed him in hot water years before, when his patently untrue tale about losing his virginity in a threesome worked through the grapevine landed him in the principal’s office, surrounded by very concerned adults.
Fast forward to his senior year of high school, stuck in Lima with nothing to do, when he was offered another opportunity to lie about his experience with threesomes. To put it simply, Sebastian did not learn his lesson.
When Blaine asked if Sebastian had ever engaged in a threesome, it felt like the obvious choice to him to say “yes”, even if that wasn’t remotely true. Blaine asked so sweetly, like he was probing into the details of his friend’s first date.
If Sebastian really thought about it, he was pretty sure that Blaine wanted him to say yes.
If he had known the shit it would cause down the line, he might’ve thought twice about it, but in that innocent, hubristic moment, Sebastian made a decision that would end up upending his life within a few months: Sebastian looked Blaine dead in the eyes, and told him that he had tons of threesome experience, which apparently made him candidate number one for doing one with Blaine and Kurt.
The truth was that Sebastian had slept with two people: a fact that he was proud of (two is more than zero, he reasoned, and most of his peers were at zero), but often neglected in favor of embellishment. He learned, sometime in his second semester in Paris, that guys were more daring with flirting when they thought that he had experience. It became a habit that made life run a little smoother.
There was another truth, one even harder to admit, that influenced his decision to lie on that fateful day. That truth was that deep down, he really wanted to see if Kurt would go for it. Just to satisfy some strange curiosity.
He felt, in a strange way, like he knew Kurt. Knew what would make him tick, and what emotion was playing on each turn of his expressive face. He thought that he knew that Kurt would never, ever go for this.
If anything, it could become a prime token in the competition between them for Blaine’s attention, and Sebastian wanted Blaine’s attention more than anything. His moon-eyed awe was a powerful thing, and Sebastian was pretty sure he deserved it.
After all, if his only competition for Blaine’s attention looked like the other half of a gay wedding topper, why should he be worried?
(He knew, from an objective aesthetic standpoint, that Kurt was a handsome guy. He had piercing blue eyes and amazing skin, but Sebastian was not about to admit that his competition had an edge at all, let alone an edge over him.)
All these factors worked together, and the rest was history. One thing led to another, and then…
Then the change. Sebastian can’t pinpoint the moment, but at some point in that whole ordeal, something happens and something changes.
He knows that it was on the first night. It wasn’t before it started, when he was jumpy with nerves, feeling woefully underprepared for what he was going into. It wasn’t when he watched Kurt and Blaine kiss, early in the whole encounter, and felt a shift of unease.
The watershed moment, he thinks, might’ve been when he was still inside Blaine. The whole “sex with Blaine” thing turned out to be less fun than he thought it would be- after the nerves faded, it was just replaced with this gut-sinking feeling, like he wasn’t sure if Blaine even really knew him.
He still performed, though- Sebastian had eyes on him, eyes that he couldn’t meet, not directly. Even if he was feeling kind of depressed about this whole thing, he wasn’t going to face Kurt right in the judgmental eye, not without sacrificing his dignity. If he couldn’t face Kurt directly, he figured he might as well give a show that made Kurt jealous. He got the sense that Blaine liked the whole jealousy thing. Maybe, in a twisted way, he was helping Kurt out.
That all faded away, of course, when Kurt said something and they made eye contact, and then something… changed. He saw something in Kurt then, something that he recognized in himself.
Maybe not that moment, Sebastian reasons. Maybe that wasn’t the moment that led to all of the disaster. It wasn’t the point of no return, just the beginning.
It was definitely the moment where he realized that Kurt didn’t necessarily have to be competition, and instead was an option just as much as Blaine was.
The point of no return was probably after that. After Blaine. A moment on the loveseat, maybe, when Kurt looked up at him through his eyelashes and said something bold and Sebastian realized, with a crash like lightning, that he really, truly wanted Kurt. He always labeled it as something else, or neglected it, but the truth was as stark and startling as it could be.
But that, Sebastian remembers, is sex. It’s not the point of no return. It was totally the point of imminent sex, but not the point where Sebastian’s stars collided and landed him in a tired heap at the altar of hyper emotional half-unrequited great love.
That moment was probably when Kurt held his hand. After the sex, and the silent explosion of discovering that Kurt is kind of everything he’s wanted that coincided with the sex, when they talked. They had never really talked before that. Not in any way that mattered.
In Sebastian’s mind, it all culminated in this quiet moment where he took Kurt’s hand in his, and they just sat there, for a moment, completely silent. That had to be the moment, Sebastian decides. They sat in silence, and Sebastian realized, all at once, that something massive had just transpired. He joked, after it, but a part of him knew. He still knows, like it’s something he was born with.
It’s a strange and unfamiliar feeling, something he can’t decide if he wants to embrace or push away. He tried to do both by entertaining the pitch of another threeway while resolutely not discussing his feelings with anyone. It was all so new- after a lifetime of bullshitting, it just didn’t feel natural to feel so damn serious about something.
The catastrophe then unfolded, feeling like a crash course in emotion and growing up, and slowly the line between bullshit and vulnerability faded away into nothing, into this.
One thing led to another. One thing leads to another. He told a lie, and then…
“Put your clothes on, and get the fuck out of my house.”
Sebastian thought that the whole thing would end with a bang, but much to his surprise, it ends in a whimper. He and Kurt walk out the house together, and he wonders who he’s supposed to be, now that it’s over.
Kurt says nothing, so Sebastian says nothing, and they go their separate ways. He drives himself home, and all the while, he can’t decide who he’s going to be. It feels like the rest of his life hangs on this, like the rest of his biography can be sorted into “Before Kurt” and “After Kurt”.
The minute he’s back in his room, far from the prying, curious eyes of his father, he pulls out his phone, and types out a message.
Sebastian Smythe: I still want you. I think I always will.
He doesn’t send it.
-
“Is it possible to lose your virginity more than once?” Jeff asks him, one day while they’re studying.
(Well, not studying. More like doing homework and talking whenever they don’t want to be doing homework, which is about 75% of the study session.)
Sebastian hates that he immediately thinks about Kurt. The wound is fresh, still, a few days old. He hasn’t talked to anyone about it, instead settling on listening to the gossip that came from Blaine’s updated relationship status on Facebook. As far as he knows, the threesome and infidelity is still under wraps, and he’s committed to keeping it that way.
“Emotionally? Totally. I mean, I’m pretty sure my emotional and physical virginity were different times,” he says.
“Were you ever a virgin, though? I feel like you came out of the womb super… cool,” Jeff says, looking over at him.
Despite having already confessed to two different types of virginities, Sebastian plays along. “You’re right. Forget what I said earlier, I was just lying to make you feel better.”
Jeff laughs, and in the few beats of silence that follow, Sebastian thinks (like he’s been doing nonstop for the past four days) about Kurt. He thinks about how new it all felt, how raw, like he was not just discovering Kurt, but like he was discovering himself too. Discovering intimacy, and vulnerability, and the limits of exactly how hard he could laugh at one joke or how much a single look could make his heart beat.
“You know, I was talking about butt virginity versus blowjob virginity versus, like, vagina virginity, but the emotional and physical thing is way more interesting,” Jeff says.
“If there’s a difference, it doesn’t matter,” Sebastian says, forcing an edge of cool confidence into his voice. “It’s just sex.”
He knows, of course, that there’s no such thing as “just sex”, at least if his current agony is anything to go by. Jeff laughs again, and Sebastian decides that Jeff sounds super impressed by his chill attitude. Sebastian also decides that he will never, never tell anyone the sordid tale of his weird Kurt Hummel fixation, at the risk of upending every single slice of reputation that he worked for.
-
This conviction falters within a day, when his dad walks in on him crying, alone in his room.
Sebastian was never a crier, but there he is, brought to tears over a literal pizza commercial. His attempt at numbing the raw nerve of teen heartbreak with cable television was sabotaged by the reminder of the time that Kurt came to his house after a bad day, and Sebastian bared his soul.
This left Sebastian’s father, the successful and emotionally constipated Stephen Smythe, faced with the sight of Sebastian on his bed, desperately trying to keep his cries quiet. His concern was immediate and admittedly pretty touching, considering that he rushed across the room with a frantic “What’s wrong?”
His question only made Sebastian cry harder, which prompted a somewhat soothing hand on his shoulder. His father repeated the question, forcing Sebastian to contend with a very real, frightening truth: he was about to share something that he had never said out loud before with a father whose emotional intelligence he didn’t fully believe in.
It was a risk, yes, but in the frantic rush of a crying fit, Sebastian didn’t know what else there was. He was fresh out of bullshit, leaving nothing but the terrifying, messy truth.
“I’m the dumbest bitch alive,” says Sebastian, the words coming out as a long, gasping sob. He realizes, once they’re out, that these words don’t even cover half of his situation, let alone provide any sort of helpful summary. They sound like a joke, too, which doesn’t help anything.
His dad’s eyebrows furrow. “Woah… language,” he says. Sebastian cries a little harder, and then tries again. All he has to do now is tell the truth. He shakes with the rush of an impending confession.
“I just- I just…” a deep breath, then, “I got myself into some… deep sh-stuff.”
“Drugs?” his dad asks, and a laugh creeps into his tears.
“No.” Sebastian wipes his cheek, and closes his eyes, pulling together enough courage to take the plunge. “I’m really into guy, and he and I… he was still with his boyfriend, and the boyfriend was kind of into me, well- really into me, and I was into him for a little bit, but then I really noticed his boyfriend, and he’s this amazing… and he and I aren’t talking because the boyfriend figured it out and now everything’s going to shit but I can’t talk about it with anyone because everyone knows everyone.”
He pauses, and takes a moment to see his dad’s expression. The reaction is pure and utter confusion, which is more calming than Sebastian expected.
“So… who is who’s boyfriend?” his dad asks.
“Kurt. I like Kurt. Blaine is his boyfriend.”
“And do you go to school with-”
“Kurt and Blaine used to go to Dalton, but then Kurt transferred to McKinley, and Blaine followed him after a few months, and then I got to Dalton.”
“Wait, so how do you know-”
“There aren’t that many gay guys in town, so I heard about Blaine and flirted with him, and then Blaine told me about his boyfriend, Kurt-”
“-and Kurt is the one you’re into, right?”
“Yes.”
“...and you and Kurt-”
“-fooled around,” Sebastian finishes, even though it felt much more intense than the words imply.
“And…” his dad prompts, his expression taking on a solidly concerned look.
“And Blaine found out. I haven’t talked to either of them since. They broke up, I know that much, but… I’m really broken up about it. I miss Kurt. And I don’t… I don’t ever miss people. I just move on and start over. But Kurt… I miss him, dad.”
The words hang in the air, and some of the gravity of the situation dawns on Sebastian. The weight of what he was feeling was so nebulous and unpredictable when it stayed in his head, but now it was out there. He had officially burst with feeling, and was stuck in the situation of looking at the debris of it all around him. Having his dad in the room doesn’t make any of it much easier.
His dad, meanwhile, seems to be thinking over the information, and Sebastian understands now more than ever why his mom always called his father “hard to read”. Maybe that’s where I got it from, he thinks.
“Are you in love with him?” his dad asks.
For a pivotal ten seconds, Sebastian is absolutely gobsmacked, and he asks himself the exact same question.
One. He thinks about Kurt. About the speed with which he can come up with a joke that’ll keep Sebastian thinking for days.
Two. The hurt. The absolute pit in his stomach that settled the minute that he and Kurt walked out of Blaine’s house without saying a single word to each other.
Three. The bathroom at Scandals, where they hugged, and the overwhelming sensation that he and Kurt were growing up fast, and that they were doing it together.
Four. A kiss on his thigh, right at the beginning, right when he least expected it.
Five. The challenge. The push and pull. The way that even when they were together and happy, Sebastian never felt bored.
Six He realizes, then, that his father is staring at him like he’s a lunatic, and Sebastian figures that this is all playing out on his face. Just when he thinks to care about it, then-
Seven. The anger. The protectiveness. The way that there were times where he hated Blaine so much that he didn’t even feel bad about the thing that he was doing.
Eight. The feeling that he gets when he can make Kurt laugh. The feeling that his entire body is turned up to ten, and everything fits in place.
Nine. The thinking. The wanting. The missing. The way he opens up his phone just to text Kurt before he remembers, like his body knows something that his mind doesn’t, or vice versa.
Ten. Yup. He’s in love with Kurt.
“Fuck,” he says, and his eyes sting a little, a fresh crop of tears falling over.
“Language,” his dad reminds him. There’s not much conviction behind it, though, which makes Sebastian relax enough to wipe a few off his cheek.
“It’s something I learned in America. Everyone curses all the time here,” he lies. “It’s such a… bad influence.”
“So you’re in love with him?”
Sebastian leans forward, dropping his head in his hands. The heels of his hands rub at his eyes, trying to stop the tears, but only making them feel more sensitive, more stinging when the tears just keep coming. He realizes, then, that his face is probably bright red and splotchy, too, and this is the fact that makes him unable to look his father in the eye. Instead, he nails his gaze straight ahead, stuck on a bare strip of wall as he tries to pull it together. Just when he thinks he’s caught a breath, his dad asks again.
“Well…? What’s the verdict?” Sebastian can hear a new hesitancy in his dad’s voice. “Y’know… what do you feel?”
Considering that Sebastian can’t even remember the last time he and his dad talked about feelings, he feels confident that this is officially uncharted waters for the both of them now.
“I feel…” Sebastian begins. Then, he closes his eyes, breathes in, breathes out. Fortified by the pause, he starts talking, and doesn’t let himself finish until he’s out of breath. “I feel like I have never wanted anything more than what I want right now, how I feel that I want, and… it’s Kurt. I want to know everything about Kurt. I want to… make him laugh, and argue about omelets, and I think… I want him to know me. I want him to get to know me… I don’t let anybody know me but I meet Kurt and it feels like my life is about to begin, like I’ve done all of this waiting and it’s- he’s- the moment is there.”
His dad takes a moment to chew on this information. Sebastian watches him work through it, abandoning his own embarrassment for the sake of getting any validation that he can. Then, he opens his mouth. The big moment, Sebastian thinks.
“So you’re in love with him.”
“Obviously,” Sebastian says, his voice ringing with impatience. “We’re way past that.” He lets himself be a little rude, as a treat for being so vulnerable.
“I’m with the program,” his dad says, bringing his hand up a little in a defensive gesture. “I just wanted to make sure.”
“And now…?”
“And now? I mean…” His dad sighs. “Geez, kid, your first love is tougher than mine ever was. That’s… I mean, that’s something that your stepmom would watch on ‘Dallas’-”
“Which stepmom?” Sebastian says, hoping to ease his own ache with a little deflection. Maybe if he’s lucky, his dad will give him a minute long breather to cool down.
“The one I’m- the one I’m currently married to. Stop deflecting.”
“I was just curious,” Sebastian lies.
“Well, here’s the thing- the thing that matters, anyway. You are in this super weird- and that’s not me being homophobic, I’m talking about the presence of the third guy, and I’d be talking about this the exact same way if it was a third girl in the equation, or something else… anyway, so you’re in this really weird position, because you’re already the bad guy. You’re already the Other Woman-”
“Homophobic,” Sebastian cuts in, just to keep some sense of pride.
“-which means that you are in a position where someone likes you enough, or alternately hates their partner enough, to cheat on them with you. It's textbook, and I’ve been there once or twice before.” At this, Sebastian nods, thinking distantly about his two stepmothers. “Here’s the thing, there’s one amazing thing about being the Other Woman: you’re the free agent.”
Sebastian makes like he’s about to object, because he’s ready to explain that Kurt and Blaine are broken up, and therefore Kurt has nothing holding him back from initiating. The protest gets lost, however, because his dad keeps on going.
“The couple? They owe things to each other. Dignities. Social stuff. Politics… but you don’t have an allegiance. You get to pick! If you want to never talk to those two guys again, you can do that. If you want to text this Kurt guy? You have all of the freedom in the world to reach out. You don’t owe anything to anybody but yourself here. He doesn’t have that. He has…” At this, his dad slows, clearly searching for the words.
“Obligations?”
“Yes. Obligations. ”
Sebastian doesn’t know quite what to say, so he sits in the silence, even as it grows into a more awkward pause. His dad is looking at him, looking for… something. Then, right when Sebastian is about to ask, his dad tells him directly.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks. Sebastian can hear the concern in his voice, and he nods.
“Yeah. I’m going to be okay.” He offers a wan smile, which earns him a raised eyebrow. “Growing pains,” he clarifies, and his dad promptly sweeps him up into a hug, one that Sebastian half-reciprocates. His other half is too busy trying to seem cool.
“Growing pains,” his dad repeats.
“You know it, Stephen,” Sebastian says, making sure to call his dad by his first name, just to poke.
“I’m your father, not Stephen,” his dad says, pulling away. This is what makes Sebastian smile, and he wipes another tear.
“Okay… father,” he says. His dad takes this as his cue, and he stands up slowly, making the first few steps to the door.
“Okay… son,” his dad says, parroting him as he leaves the room, leaving Sebastian with two very dangerous things on his mind: love and a fully charged cell phone on his desk.
Sebastian decides, then, that he is officially going to let himself think about texting Kurt. Enough time has passed that thinking about it makes sense to put on the table, right?
Impulsive as ever, thinking about texting Kurt turns to deciding to text Kurt within about thirty seconds, so with his heart in his throat and drying tears on his cheek, Sebastian decides that it’s about damn time for him to poke.
Sebastian: You know the worst thing about all this?
It’s a leading question, and he feels safer for picking that instead of any definitive statement. Sebastian decides that if Kurt texts back, and takes the bite, he will be vulnerable.
Kurt takes 15 minutes to respond.
Kurt: What?
By the time Sebastian feels the buzz beside him, he’s wiped his face and gotten comfortable in his bed, all while resolutely waiting Kurt out.
Then, laid back on his bed and receiving the text he’d been waiting for, Sebastian realizes that he never decided what he’d even say if Kurt actually texted back.
He types I’m in love with you, then immediately deletes it. Way too much.
He taps out a slow I’m so used to talking with you every day.
He sends it- it feels like a better place to start. Then, a memory hits him, and he decides to send that too.
Sebastian: Today my French teacher used the wrong expression of “I’m excited” and my hand twitched to my phone before I remembered.
Sebastian: It’s kinda freaky, you know? How quickly I got used to just… telling you everything
He can feel his heartbeat everywhere, he’s that nervous. He wasn’t this nervous for any concert or competition he’d experienced in his lifetime. It’s a weird sensation, discovering how hard he can feel.
Then, the minutes tick by, and Kurt doesn’t text back. Sebastian closes his phone and refuses to stare at it while he waits. The minutes become hours, until he decides to go to bed, and he wakes up to no text.
He waits, and in the silence, figures that’s his answer.
-
It takes Kurt two weeks to say anything. The two weeks are torturous, and full of enough agonizing that Sebastian was almost ready to give up entirely on hoping. Just when he was about to decide that Kurt’s window of opportunity closed, Kurt texts him, at 2am on a Tuesday.
Kurt: How much do you remember about our frist time?
Sebastian is shocked awake by the notification, which pulls him from a light sleep up to fully awake in mere seconds. He stares at it, unpacking its mysteries for a moment. The typo, the question itself, the hour… Then, he decides that he’s much too impatient to wait any longer to answer it.
Sebastian: Everything.
It was only honest. Sebastian was up to the challenge: he wanted to be honest.
Kurt: Right after. We were sitting on the couch. You looked really worried, and I asked why, and I never really got an answer. I play it over and over in my head, and I still don’t know what you were worried about.
The text throws him, for a moment. He didn’t expect that that would haunt Kurt enough to warrant a late night text. He thinks back to that moment, tries to live in it for a few seconds, and then settles on his answer.
Sebastian: I know this is a bad answer, but basically everything. I was worried about everything.
Kurt: Everything?
Sebastian: I mean… Blaine was metres away, I thought you Hated Me, you were looking at me all weird, and I had just had a very unexpected sexual encounter.
Sebastian: So, yes. Everything.
Sebastian: Any other questions?
Anticipation fills him, watching the typing bubbles move up and down, before suddenly disappearing into a breathtaking moment.
Kurt: Would it be weird if I called you?
Well… shit. It’s everything he ever wanted, and he doesn’t even know if he could trust it. Is it too good to be true? What would Kurt even say?
He has to know, and there’s only one way to find out.
He calls Kurt.
Kurt picks up immediately, and Sebastian waits for him to say something. He gets a little worried as the seconds stretch on, but waits nonetheless. Kurt breaks the silence with a soft “Hey”, one that barely breaks through his phone.
“So…” Sebastian takes a steeling breath. “Questions?” The slightest tremor of discomfort comes through his voice.
“You remember everything,” Kurt says. Sebastian’s eyebrows quirk up, ready to point out how that notably wasn’t a question, only to get interrupted by Kurt continuing. “And you were worried about everything. And I can ask you everything.”
Kurt pauses, and Sebastian takes it as a question. Was that true? He knew, without much rumination, that it was. He wouldn’t feel this much if it wasn’t.
“...Yes.”
“It- I- it meant something to you, right?” Kurt says, all in a big rush of words, like he’d been holding it in.
“Oh, thank god, that’s an easy one. Yes, yes it meant something to me. In fact, I’d say…” At first his tone is light, almost conversational, before Sebastian remembers that this all means something. He can’t bullshit, no matter how easy bullshitting would be. When he continues, his voice is more raw, more unsure. “...I’d say it was actually… very meaningful. To me. It was the sexual equivalent of, like… god, this is going to make me sound insane, but if I had to compare it to anything, it was the sexual equivalent of being on a plane, and looking around, and realizing how absolutely insane planes are. That’s what sex with you was like.”
Kurt is absolutely silent, and Sebastian’s stomach drops, because it strikes him that he might’ve said the wrong thing, even if it was true. He lets dread fill him for a few moments, before Kurt’s cool, sarcastic monotone hits him.
“Thanks. I’ll put that on my sexual Yelp page.”
Kurt’s words simultaneously shock and comfort Sebastian with their humor, and he responds with a laugh. “What does that even mean?” He takes a moment to think about it- Sexual Yelp? What would that even look like?
“It makes way more sense than your weird airplane metaphor. Loads more sense,” Kurt says, joining in on the laughter, even if his was softer than Sebastian’s. This was what Sebastian missed, he thinks.
“At least the airplane thing is nice!”
“Is it? Because I don’t understand it! It’s like saying that sex with me is like… ramen. Or a stack of tarot cards. I also don’t have a habit of sitting in planes and thinking about how weird planes are, because I’ve been on a plane once in my life, so this airplane thing being nice is news to me!” Kurt rambles.
“You’ve never felt the airplane thing?” Sebastian asks, squinting.
“On my one- no, two, because I also came back- airplane trips, there wasn’t an especially weird moment, no.”
Sebastian, who’s been traveling since he was a baby, never really considered that people hadn’t had experience with planes.
“So… not the thing where you look around and think about how it’s an insane marvel of engineering, and that even the most mundane or normal parts of our lives are these super big things that are actually really meaningful and important? Because people have dedicated their lives to planes, and so once in a while, I’ll be on a plane, and I’ll be hit with the fact that it matters, and it matters a lot, and… yeah.” His tone starts skeptical, but winds off into something softer, and more gentle.
Kurt says nothing for a while, long enough that Sebastian feels the silence in his body.
“That… sounds like a five star review,” Kurt says, his voice breathier than Sebastian expected. This is good news, he decides.
“It is.” Sebastian wishes, not for the first time in his life, that he had the ability to read Kurt’s mind. “Any other questions?”
“I think you should ask something,” Kurt says, which just makes Sebastian more nervous.
“Alright, alright…” he says, thinking. He couldn’t ask Kurt for a commitment, or another meeting, not so soon… and Kurt wasn’t seeming especially vocal about his feelings, so that might not be smart… Sebastian decides, with genuine gravity, to make a joke. “What are you wearing?”
Kurt starts laughing before the sentence is even finished, and the laugh rests in some weird zone between frantic and relieved. “That’s- that’s your question?”
“Force of habit,” Sebastian says, shit eating grin on full display. He feels a little proud of being able to break the tension, to make things feel just a little easier.
“Do you seriously want me to answer?” Kurt asks, and Sebastian feels a fire lit under him at the thrill of thinking that Kurt might be interested.
“Well… now I’m curious.” It feels like he’s toying with the boundary, pushing just slightly.
With a huff of a laugh, Kurt folds, even though it didn’t feel like much of a fight. “Pajamas. My silk ones. Matching set in navy… and you?”
“Sweatpants,” Sebastian answers, before deciding to lay back on the bed, to shift around a little. He wants to be situated in the phone call, instead of being on edge. They were talking. The hard part was over, right? No need to be on edge.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asks.
“Getting comfortable,” Sebastian mumbles, before shuffling again to get even more comfortable. One he’s properly laid back, his next words come out in a half-yawning, sleepy drawl. “Would you believe me if I told you that I’m terrible at sleeping alone?”
Kurt sighs. “Yes.” A pause. “No, actually.” Then another, really pondering it. “Well- yes. Yes I would believe you… at face value, and everything.”
As entertained as Sebastian is by Kurt’s waffling, he can’t help but be a bit concerned. “Are you nervous?” In response, Kurt takes a slow, audible breath.
“Not nervous enough.”
The words are stark, and Sebastian could swear that they give him a world’s worth of information. Not nervous enough. He could work with that. He just had to… be himself. And vulnerable. And all those other things he’s been holding in.
“I’m nervous,” he admits. “I mean… This is kind of crazy, and I don’t usually care this much about things, so… Nerves. They happen. It should be expected, honestly, I don’t know why my body didn’t prepare for it… like an anxiety hibernation. I should have all the chill stored up, right?”
“I don’t know if it works that way. I mean, I wish it did, but…” Kurt laughs, and Sebastian's not entirely sure what he’s laughing at.
“You’d think- I’ve spent these past few weeks just reading our texts, over and over… I’ve been doing schoolwork too, of course, but a lot of time has just been reading them, and… I still don’t know what you’re going to say. I should be a predictive powerhouse when it comes to things you say by now, but… no idea. Nothing.” It’s like the dam had burst, all coolness now replaced with a frenetic rush of words. “I’ve honestly considered seeing a psychic about it.”
“I’ve been reading over the texts too,” he starts, fast and sudden, before halting just as quickly. He pauses for a few more moments, before speaking fast, all over again. “Would a psychic be able to help if I don’t even know? If I haven’t really… named what I feel? Because I feel so much but I… I don’t really know what it is.”
It takes some mental maneuvering for Sebastian to understand it, but when he does, he decides that it’s something to be hopeful about.
“Maybe you should go see a psychic.”
“Do you think Tina would count?” Sebastian wonders what Tina’s psychic credentials are, but he decides that he’ll ask Kurt more about it later. The next time (hopefully) that they talk.
“I was just going to go to the one that my mom uses, but I was a bit worried about the ability for psychic connections to work over video chat.” Such were the woes of having a French mother with a French psychic.
“Then you should totally keep it local,” Kurt says, his voice light as if he was talking about the weather.
“Any recommendations for psychics who can give you and I insight into your mind?” Sebastian asks. He tries to sound casual, but no matter which way he spins it, the question slams them back to earth.
“None come to mind… I’ll check the message boards.”
Maddening. Absolutely maddening. Sebastian wanted to cry, laugh, and kiss, all in equal measure. He decides, as was the custom of Sebastian, to poke.
“Do you think we could get a two for one special?”
Kurt doesn’t speak, and the tone gets much more grave.
“I don’t believe in psychics,” Kurt says. “I don’t believe in god, or anything, so the idea that there are these supernatural forces… I don’t really…”
Sebastian’s stomach drops. It hits him like a rejection.
“Yeah, I get it.” He’s resigned. He hopes that his voice isn’t too despondent, even as he makes his hurried retreat. “I should go to sleep.”
It feels cowardly, even as Kurt affirms him with a “Me too.”
For a few long moments, they stay like that. Still and quiet, neither hanging up.
“Goodnight, Sebastian,” Kurt says, his voice barely rising above a whisper.
“Goodnight, Kurt.”
Then, Sebastian hangs up, desperate to retain some pride.
It’s only after, when he’s looking at his phone screen, thinking about the cataclysmic event that just took place, that he realizes that he can’t just retreat.
He is Sebastian Smythe. He is a free agent. He is a guy in love, and he can’t just… leave it there. Unspoken. Unpursued. Unknown.
He compromises, and sends Kurt a text.
Sebastian: We should talk more. Not tonight or anything, just… in general.
Sebastian: I miss you.
He sees Kurt type, then delete the message, then type again. He was hypnotized. Kurt held his fate in the palm of his hand, and would execute this honor via text message.
Kurt: I miss you too.
Sebastian looks at his phone, and decides that he had just seen a miracle. He officially had a shot. He smiles, unable to keep it in. He doesn’t even text back, since he’s too busy feeling rosy about his prospects. He’ll text Kurt tomorrow, when his brain is fresh, and he’s thought about the perfect thing to say.
-
They text more than Sebastian expected when they first agreed to talk more, and after a week of near-constant texting, Sebastian is beginning to realize just how desperate he is to have Kurt back in his life.
It only takes three days for him to start thinking (and fantasizing, and obsessing a little) about when he and Kurt can meet up in person again. What follows is four days of brewing, simmering, and texting. Lots of texting.
It’s Kurt’s most recent text, a casual mention of a new Dairy Queen opening up nearby, that makes Sebastian properly break and send his request.
Once it’s out, he can’t stop staring at the phone, counting the minutes since Kurt’s “Read” receipt popped up on his text. 17 minutes. That’s a no, right? He feels a little crazy for it, as he sits on his bed and stares at his phone, trying to predict the future.
Was the text of “Let’s go to Dairy Queen” too much? Too little? Every new question makes Sebastian more and more despondent.
At the 20 minute mark, Kurt texts back a nonchalant “Sure.”
“I’m going crazy,” Sebastian says, mostly to himself, but partly to his phone. “This man is driving me insane.”
That doesn’t stop him from going to Dairy Queen, and being five minutes early. It’s almost shameful how much Sebastian wants this, but when he sees Kurt enter the building (at 6 on the dot, right when they said they’d meet), he feels like he’s proven correct. Kurt doesn’t even bother to go to the counter, forgoing any order for the purpose of sitting across from Sebastian in the middle of this shiny, freshly opened fast food restaurant.
“Hi,” Kurt says, taking a seat. Sebastian blinks at him, trying to see if anything changed since the last time he saw him, back when…
He almost feels haunted by the memory of it, at the way that “Put your clothes on, and get the fuck out of my house” echoes in his head, sharp and unbidden.
“Hi,” Sebastian says, trying to banish any thoughts of the last time they saw each other.
“Did you get a haircut?” Kurt asks, his head tilting to the side, a little pensive.
“A trim,” Sebastian answers. “Like… two weeks ago.”
Kurt doesn’t say anything back, and Sebastian doesn’t quite know what else to say. He just stares, and he thinks a million things, instead.
I love you. I want you. I’ll always want you. Kurt, can’t you see? Do you know how big my feelings are? Do you know how much I can love you? I’ll love you childishly, foolishly, unconditionally. Let me. Please.
“Sebastian.”
“Kurt.”
“I need you to tell me the truth,” Kurt says, his voice warbling in the end. From behind him, some woman orders a burger, and Sebastian is reminded of the fact that they picked the strangest place for this reunion.
“I will,” Sebastian says. He means it.
“What do you want?”
“What?” Sebastian wonders, for a second, if he’s making a joke about ordering food.
“Out of me. Out of this.”
He blinks, again. Once. Twice. He looks at Kurt with something that feels like fear.
“You.”
All of the breath leaves Kurt at once, but he stays quiet. He pulls it together, and resists a reaction.
“And what would that… entail?” he says, delicately.
“I wanna date you,” Sebastian says, and his own anxiety bleeds into his voice. His heart is on the line, and he doesn’t quite know what he’ll do if Kurt breaks it. “I want to make it work. I want it more than I’ve wanted anything. I… if you give me the permission to, I’ll fight like hell for us. I just… Do I have a chance?”
Kurt bites his lip, but something in his expression softens, and it gives Sebastian a spark of hope.
“And… and you’re not dicking around,” Kurt prompts.
“Not at all.” Sebastian’s nervous energy gets poured into his smile, which grows as each second passes, as he realizes that Kurt is acting like a man about to say ‘yes’.
“Then…” Kurt pauses, and bites the inside of his cheek, but even that can’t stifle his smile. “Then yeah, I guess.”
“Yeah, I guess?” Sebastian asks, but he’s not too bothered. He’s even laughing a little, as the magnitude of the whole thing hits him. Kurt said yes. “I do this whole speech… a marvel of the English language, and boom... you hit me with the ‘yeah, I guess’. How could I compete? You’ve outdone me, Hummel. That’s pure lyricism. You win.”
“Shut up,” Kurt says, joining in on the laughter. “I prefer my poetry short.”
“Your poetry,” Sebastian says, before letting out a soft cackle.
“You’re the one who said it… I’m the winner of the love confessions competition that we were apparently having. My prize for winning is lunch.”
“I confess my love to you and you make me buy you lunch…” Sebastian shakes his head, even as he pulls out his wallet.
“I’m a cruel mistress,” Kurt says, haughty and airy as he scoots out of the booth. Sebastian follows him, feeling every bit like Kurt Hummel’s Boyfriend as they make their way to the front.
“I feel like I’m the mistress here,” Sebastian says.
Kurt casts a glance his way, and a soft smile. “Ex-mistress.”
“How romantic.” His voice is sarcastic, but his demeanor is much too sunny for it to carry any weight. He places his order, and beckons to Kurt to place his, and resists reaching out to touch him, to use a hand on the shoulder to make sure that he’s really there. Kurt has to snap him out of it, and prompt Sebastian to actually pay for the food.
Sebastian works his way through the motions, even as his brain is slowly being taken over by pure, unadulterated excitement over his new status. He wants to dance, or scream, or something. He’s practically teeming with energy when they sit back down at their booth, and Kurt draws entertainment from the sight of it.
“You look like a kid on Christmas morning.”
“I’m about to eat ice cream,” Sebastian lies. “I’m always this excited about ice cream.”
“Whatever you say, my beloved ex-mistress,” Kurt sighs, casting a lazy smile his way.
Sebastian feels truly and utterly beloved, regardless of how monotone the delivery was. It was something about the way Kurt looked at him, something that Sebastian couldn’t shake.
It was something that he had never been able to shake in the first place, a thing that tethered them together since the moment they connected.
“I’m really excited for this,” Kurt says, after a few moments. His voice is reflective.
Sebastian nods before he even finishes the sentence, and he doesn’t hesitate to chime in. “Me too. I’m… I’m feeling really hopeful about this.” It’s the complete truth.
They look at each other, and breathe in and out, in time with each other. Sebastian doesn’t say a word as he allows himself to feel young again, but he savors it all the same.