"Well, I'm out." Santana says, throwing her coat on over her uniform while Kurt hands her her handbag from behind the counter. "When's your dad's flight coming in?"
"It's not." Kurt frowns. "Everything's grounded, apparently. He won't be able to get here until tomorrow."
"That's too bad," Santana says. "Now you're going to be alone in the loft on Thanksgiving! That sucks."
"It's no big deal," Kurt says, blowing it off when Santana knows he's been waiting to see his dad for months. "He'll be here tomorrow. I'll just catch up on some work, finish a few school projects, learn how to play backgammon. It's going to be fine.
"Well, you know, I don't have to go to Brittany's grandma's place tonight," Santana offers, albeit reluctantly. "I mean, her whole family's over there. It's going to be wall-to-wall people, and you know I don't do well with crowds. I can spend the night at the loft and be there for breakfast in the morning, before the turkey hangovers wear off."
"No, no, no," Kurt insists, coming around the counter to escort Santana to the door. "You guys have been planning this Thanksgiving for months. There's no reason for you to hang out at the loft just because I'm going to be there alone."
Santana stops at the door to finish buttoning up her coat, but Kurt can see her stalling.
"Are you sure? Because there's really no problem…"
"Yes, Santana," Kurt cuts in, helping her with the last three buttons, "I'm sure. Now go, have fun, eat turkey, don't kill anyone."
"Have you met Brittany's Aunt Ethel?" Santana asks, tying her scarf and popping her collar to block out the wind. "I ain't promising anything."
"Well, don't get blood on your uniform. Gunther'll take it out of your pay."
Kurt holds the door open for Santana and she gives him a hug.
"Don't work too hard," she says.
"Never do," Kurt replies. "Now go. You've got a coat, I don't, and I'm freezing my ass off out here."
"Too late," Santana teases, rushing out into the snow.
"Shut your mouth, my ass is fabulous," Kurt mutters, pulling the door behind him, rubbing a hand down his arm to chase off the cold.
"I'm out too," Jubilee says, tossing her coat on as she heads for the door. "Oh, and one of the bus boys tried to put a guy in my section, so I moved him to yours, alright?"
"Yeah, yeah," Kurt says, taking a step back to open the door for her, too. "Take care of that sick little man of yours. Tell him I hope he gets better soon."
Jubilee's six-year-old son Drogo has sort of become the mascot around the Spotlight Diner. He's sweet, well-behaved, stays mostly to himself, and spends his allowance money on milkshakes when he comes to visit. Even Gunther likes him, and Gunther sees most kids as a 'necessary evil', even his own. It broke Kurt's heart to find out that the boy had caught pneumonia over Thanksgiving break, after having just gotten over an epic case of the flu.
"Thanks," she says, hurrying so Kurt can shut the door and be warm again. "Will do."
Jubilee heads off in the direction of the subway, which leaves the Spotlight Diner with a somewhat skeleton crew. It's the last few hours of Kurt's shift, and the diner's a ghost town. He would curse Gunther for keeping the place open, but seeing as the man's from Germany, he doesn't believe in closing up shop for Thanksgiving, squeezing every precious dime he can from any day with twenty-four hours in it. Kurt might have complained if he wasn't getting time-and-a-half.
Kurt returns to the dining room, shivering the final dregs of a chill away. Pulling his order pad and pen from his pocket, he approaches the only occupied booth.
"Welcome to the Spotlight Diner. My name is Kurt, and I'll be your waiter this evening. May I take your ugh…"
"Nice," the man in the Armani coat, sitting across from a black suitcase, says when Kurt's spiel grinds to a halt, "and a Happy Thanksgiving to you, too, Hummel."
"Sebastian Smythe," Kurt says, shifting his weight to one leg and resting a hand on his hip, "what in hell" - Kurt hears a throat clear, stopping him in the middle of delivering a snappish retort. He turns his head, feeling beady eyes staring through his skull, and sees Gunther watching him from the back, lurking like Gollum, making sure that Kurt doesn't let the precious get away – "do I owe the pleasure of seeing you again?" Kurt finishes with a forced grin, not even trying to mask his displeasure.
Sebastian smirks at the silent exchange between Kurt and the bald-headed man, who nods in approval and sinks back down through the window in the kitchen.
"Smooth," Sebastian says. "Nice save there, Hasselhoff."
"No, really," Kurt says, lowering his voice so Gunther won't hear, "why the hell are you here?"
"I've been trying to get out of the city and off to greener pastures, like everyone else," he says defensively, pulling out his iPhone and covertly checking the screen. "But if you haven't noticed, there's a blizzard outside, and joy of joys, I got stuck here."
"Well, if you're in a rush, do you want to see a menu, or do you just want whatever's up?" Kurt asks. They don't normally do that at the Spotlight, serve their customers whatever happens to be ready, but for Sebastian Smythe, Kurt will make an exception, as long as he can move the man along and off to his 'greener pastures' as soon as humanly possible.
"Uh, thanks, but no thanks," Sebastian says, checking his cell phone again. "If your taste in food is anything like your taste in clothes, I'm not going to let you choose for me."
"Technically, it would be the chef's choice," Kurt says, tapping his pen against his order pad in frustration, "and I should warn you, he shops at Walmart."
"Jesus Christ," Sebastian groans, clenching his fist around his phone, obviously done with the witty banter portion of their conversation. "Could you just get me a menu and a Perrier, and leave me alone?"
"Okay, okay, Mr. Grumpy Pants," Kurt says, slipping his pen into its holder and putting his pad back in his pocket. He grabs a menu from the wall and drops it on Sebastian's table, not bothering to open it for him and point out the specials. "I'll go get your Perrier."
Kurt walks to the counter and asks Sylvie, the waitress behind the bar, for a Perrier and a glass of ice. The diner is relatively quiet, the jukebox playing on loop since their regular pianist is in Staten Island, having dinner with his family. Waiting on Sebastian's order, he hears the man behind him grumbling, bits and pieces of conversation bouncing at Kurt between refrains of Our House.
"Look, you said you'd pick me up at the airport, and now I'm stuck in the city…well, tell me where you are and I'll meet you there…No? What do you mean no? We made these plans months go!...Now? You're going to do this now? Over the phone? I cleared my calendar, for God's sake, just to be with you! I was supposed to meet my parent's upstate, and I passed for you!…Yeah, well, enjoy yourself with what's his name, you dumb fuck! I hope you get chlamydia!"
Kurt hears Sebastian slam his hand on the table and flinches.
"Here you go." Sylvie hands Sebastian's Perrier to Kurt. "FYI, I think your guy's in here for the long haul," she comments in a hushed voice, motioning over Kurt's shoulder toward his table.
"Yeah," Kurt says. "It's alright. I had no plans tonight anyway."
Kurt walks Sebastian's drink to his table, watching the man he knew and despised for so long mourn the end of his relationship, his head in his hands, and his iPhone clamped so tightly in his right fist, Kurt thinks he can see it buckling in the middle. Seeing Sebastian like this, at an all-time low, Kurt can almost forget what he was like back in high school, back when Kurt's only thoughts of him were how to make him pay for every awful thing he had done to him and the New Directions.
Back then, Sebastian seemed like some powerful, dark wizard, ruining everything for him with the snap of his fingers. But in this booth, he's just another bitter New Yorker having a shit holiday, and Kurt can't remember what made him so intimidating.
"So, here's your Perrier," Kurt says, arranging the glass on a cardboard coaster, then opening the bottle, moving slowly in case Sebastian feels like saying something about the phone conversation that took place. Kurt still has no love for Sebastian, but he can definitely sympathize with a bad break up.
Sebastian watches Kurt serve his drink, taking special care to place the coaster underneath the glass just so, then twisting the cap off the bottle with intense precision.
"Can you pour that any slower there, princess?" Sebastian asks, a bit of his snark returning since he has Kurt to throw a few barbs at. "It's not like anybody's thirsty here or anything."
"Just waiting to see if you're ready to order," Kurt says. "I do have other things to do around here then wait on you."
Sebastian pokes his head up over the booth and looks around at the nothing going on and nobody in the diner.
"Yeah," he says, "it looks like you've really got your hands full."
"As in any successful business, all the real work goes on behind the scenes," Kurt says. "Are you ready to order or what?"
"No," Sebastian says, staring at his menu. "I'm going to need more time."
"Suit yourself." Kurt leaves Sebastian the bottle and returns to the counter, where he'll have a clear view of Sebastian's table. Kurt busies himself cleaning silverware and drying glasses, wiping down tables and refilling sugar jars, peeking Sebastian's way from time to time. Sebastian, oblivious to Kurt's spying, furiously sends messages from his phone, scrolls through web pages, then makes a call – several calls - that all end in, "Thank you anyway," and then "Shit!" after he hangs up.
Kurt watches Sebastian travel down this bumpy hill with no one running to his aid, and his heart twists a little for him. He's pretty sure that Sebastian won't tell him what happened if he outright asks him, and besides, he's not sure that he wants to get that involved in Sebastian Smythe's personal business. Kurt can only forgive and forget so much. But Sebastian's looking defeated this way bothers him. Seeing anybody post-break up would be painful, but with Sebastian…Kurt doesn't know. It's just different.
When Blaine cheated on him, Kurt had a handful of loyal friends standing by his side to hand him Kleenex, bring him cheesecake, and listen to him bitch. But there's no one here for Sebastian, and the phone in his hands hasn't rung once, not for all of the text messages he's been sending.
Kurt's feet seem to decide what he's going to do before his head's completely certain. At the moment, it seems like Kurt's the only person available for Sebastian in New York. He might be wrong; he doesn't actually know if that's true. Still, his conscience won't let him sleep tonight if he doesn't do something.
"Hey," Kurt says, stopping beside Sebastian's table.
"I still don't know what I want," Sebastian says without lifting his head from his phone, a page from the Travelocity website filling the screen.
"I figured that much," Kurt says, quelling a verbal eye-roll. "Look, it seems to me that, maybe, your plans for Thanksgiving may have…uh…fallen through?" Kurt poses it as a question, giving Sebastian the opportunity to disagree and set him straight; to tell him, in the most condescending way possible, that he's actually on his way to a huge gala dinner in Upper Manhattan, and he's trying to find a ride. That would absolve Kurt of any guilt he might have for planning on leaving him sitting there after his shift and not turning back.
Instead, Sebastian looks up from his phone and glares at Kurt, his cheeks darkening by several shades of an angry and embarrassed red. Kurt considers retracting his invitation, but that would make him as much of a douche as the nameless man on the phone.
"My roommate's gone to her girlfriend's grandmother's place for Thanksgiving," Kurt elaborates, "and I have eight pounds of turkey at home that I'm barely going to eat. Why don't you come over and…you know…eat some of it?"
Sebastian stares at Kurt, his face blank, his cheeks less red, but his eyes still carrying the same level of embarrassment. Maybe he didn't realize he had yelled his side of the drama out loud for Kurt and various other strangers to hear. But the way he looks at Kurt, vehemently indignant and utterly annoyed, makes Kurt think that Sebastian might expect him to apologize.
"Believe it or not, I have better things to do than accept a pity meal from you," Sebastian says, returning to his phone. "I'll just grab a turkey club and get myself a room. Hold the avocado."
"Whatever," Kurt says, writing on his order pad one turkey club a la asshole…extra avocado.
The customers in The Spotlight Diner come and go in waves. Oddly enough, between eight and nine, there's a surge of customers crowding the dining room, with a line starting to form out the door. But barely an hour later, only four tables are taken, with one diner a piece, Kurt's included. Sebastian picks at the remains of his turkey sandwich, which he has divided into pieces on his plate, but it doesn't look like he's taken a bite. Kurt sighs. He's itching to leave, even though there's no one at home to meet him when it gets there, and nothing really for him to do. But he's done being here, done being on his feet, done smelling like French fries and bacon grease.
"So, Mr. Frommer," Kurt says, bringing Sebastian his check without him asking for it, hoping he'll get the hint, "it looks like you might be having trouble finding a room?"
"Aren't you supposed to be working or something?" Sebastian growls at his phone.
"Actually, you're my last table of the night," Kurt says, putting emphasis on the time aspect of the equation. "I don't leave until you leave. So, when are you leaving?"
"Well" – Sebastian fiddles with his phone, thumbing through screens he's looked at to death – "it seems that the only worthwhile hotels in Manhattan are full, and there's no way I'm leaving this borough."
"Snob," Kurt mumbles, coughing to cover. Sebastian glances up at him, unamused.
"And," Sebastian moves on, "because of the storm coming in, the first flight I can book leaves tomorrow night…tentatively."
"So, what are your other options?" Kurt asks, leading Sebastian to the conclusion Kurt came up with hours ago.
Sebastian knows it, too. He also knows it's his only viable choice, unless he wants to spend the rest of tonight and the next day warming a bench at Grand Central Station. He'd rather die than admit it. He could probably find a room in Queens, but after the day he's had, a home-cooked meal and a cozy corner to crawl into and sulk sounds a thousand times more inviting than rented sheets and stale air.
But this is Kurt Hummel. Last Sebastian checked, he and Kurt were barely even on speaking terms, with the chances of them becoming friends so far past the horizon, he can't even see it happening in his lifetime. Why would Kurt be offering him anything?
Why is Sebastian considering taking him up on it?
Probably because no one else he knows – none of his friends from college, none of his frat brothers, no one from his dad's office, not even his brother - is jumping in to help him out.
"I don't know," Sebastian says, his jaw tight, "how late does this diner stay open?"
"Not all night, if that's what you're thinking," Kurt says with a sigh. "Look" - Kurt glances at the clock. His shift was over five minutes ago. In another minute, Gunther's going to realize he's working overtime, storm out, probably with some kind of cleaver in hand, and chase him off the premises. Kurt has to pull out the stops - "I despise you. You barely tolerate me. It's almost like a normal Thanksgiving dinner already. We just have to add the turkey, which, including you, we should have 238 lbs of" – Kurt steps back and gives Sebastian a quick once over – "give or take five pounds." Sebastian scoffs and Kurt continues, to keep from laughing and botching the whole thing. He doesn't know why he's invested. If Sebastian says no, he says no. No harm, no foul.
Except he's put so much effort into trying to convince him, so much time into making sure he's going to be okay. Plus, Kurt may not be as fine with going home to an empty loft on Thanksgiving as he made it sound to Santana.
"I'll even throw in a night on the couch. I mean, it's Brooklyn, so sorry about that, but I think it's the best you're going to get."
"Why don't I just take your roommate's bed?" Sebastian asks, which makes Kurt certain that Sebastian's more than considering it.
"Because I like her. I'm not going to disrespect her by letting you get your skin flakes all over her Dutch oven king-size pillows."
Sebastian thrums his fingers on the table, his expression of disgust growing less desperate as he considers Kurt's proposal, and that's when Kurt knows he has him.
"Alright," Sebastian says, handing Kurt his credit card. He slides out from the booth and picks up his bag. "But if you tell anyone…"
"Don't worry," Kurt says, walking to the counter with Sebastian following behind, "I won't. In fact, the minute you leave, I'm burning my couch."