A/N: 1) I don't own 'Glee' and don't get any money for writing this. No copyright infringement intended.
2) The title is from the song 'Courtesy Call' by 'Thousand Foot Krutch'. If you want some sountrack to the story you can listen to it on Youtube here: watch?v=CRPIInfuSCM
3) Written for a GAM prompt.
Kurt wraps his fingers around his cup of non-fat mocha, revelling in the warmth against his skin. A perfect companion to an English paper is a big cup of coffee, that's why Kurt likes it so much in the Lima Bean. He's never really told anyone, but it feels like a French movie or a book about the twenties when he sits there with his papers and books strewn across the table with a cup of coffee next to his elbow. It's kind of romantic, even if he's not writing a novel or sonnets but just doing his homework. Well, there's nothing in the world that would be harmed by a small additional bit of romance, and if there is, it's not homework, that's for sure.
Although, to find a table is quite hard: Kurt's not the only one who like spending time in the Lima Bean in the afternoon. He looks through the crowded room, and there's just one free chair as far as he can see. And opposite to this chair there's Sebastian Smythe of all people, looking at his phone intently and not paying attention to anything else whatsoever.
Kurt briefly contemplates coming over and sitting there, but tosses this thought away immediately as ridiculous. He doesn't have biting anyone's head off planned for today, and that's what's bound to happen if he and Sebastian spend more than two minutes in each other's proximity. He sighs, still looking at Sebastian.
They are barely three meters apart. It's a distance short enough for Kurt to notice the dark circles under Sebastian's eyes, the creases on his Dalton tie and the traces of sweat and dirt on the collar of his white shirt. Apparently, something's off in Sebastian's life, and at this thought Kurt feels his lips curl into a tiny satisfied smirk. He knows it's petty and rather uncool to enjoy other people's distress, but it's Sebastian, after all, it's not 'people', it's 'an overgrown criminal meerkat', and do we apply the rules of decency to anthropomorphic criminal meerkats? Probably not.
He's already decided to stop staring and just go drink his coffee in the street before heading home with the homework, when Sebastian looks up as if having felt Kurt looking. Kurt waits for Sebastian to raise his eyebrows, smirk and say something offensive because that's what Sebastian does so enthusiastically as if he gets paid for it, but Sebastian just holds their gazes locked for a couple of seconds, not a shadow of amusement or sneer in his expression, and then breaks the eye contact to shove his phone into his jacket pocket hastily.
That's a whole new level of wrong, and Kurt feels his own smirk fading. Oh God, has someone in Sebastian's family died, or what? Has Sebastian gotten involved into drug-dealing – Kurt wouldn't put pretty much anything past Sebastian – and had to run away from his 'business partners' and the police at the same time? Kurt's thoughts buzz like anxious bees, despite the fact that whatever disaster Sebastian's got himself into it's none of Kurt's business. It's not like they don't hate each other.
He sighs once again. Sebastian has already spoiled his day by merely existing, so what's the difference?
"Ladyboy," Sebastian says, and it sounds kind of sharp instead of the usual condescending. "To what do I owe the displeasure?"
"Hi, Sebastian," Kurt says, sitting down without invitation. "You look like shit, pardon my French. Did Dalton's school board finally decide to transfer you to the juvie? Well, better late than never."
"Charming as ever, aren't you?" Sebastian smiles tightly. "Why are you alone here of all places? Did your delicious piece of a boyfriend finally find out that you're a ladyboy indeed, freak out and dump you?"
Kurt frowns. Part of him wants to shower Sebastian with his still hot coffee, but another part doesn't like the idea of wasting the heavenly liquid. Besides, all of Kurt is slightly confused by the insult: it's as bizarrely off as the rest of Sebastian, his tight voice and smile, his clothes – Kurt doesn't remember the guy having an ounce of taste, but he also doesn't remember him looking like he's spent a couple of days in the Dumpster, – his tense face and hollow eyes.
He really does look like shit.
"Are you waiting for someone?" Kurt asks.
There's brief surprise on Sebastian's face, and then just the tension again.
"Yes, I am, unlike some people here. Would you be so kind as to free the chair for my oncoming date?"
"You're a horrible, hoooorrible liar," Kurt chuckles into his cup, not really feeling cheerful. "Even someone as dumb and rude as you wouldn't come to a date in a jacket which reeks of rotten bananas. And don't you know that normal people wash their necks before a date?"
In fact, Sebastian's jacket does reek of rotten bananas. Kurt's inclined to consider a dark stain on the jacket's sleeve the trace of that banana which was unfortunate enough to run into Sebastian Smythe.
Sebastian stands up so abruptly that his chair falls on the floor with rattling noise.
"It has been very uninteresting to talk to you," he says, tight-lipped, and narrow-eyed, and so tense that Kurt's half-waiting for him to snap like an overstretched rubber band. "I sincerely wish that you choke on your coffee and die."
These words sound like Sebastian means them.
Sebastian turns to walk away, and Kurt's instincts kick in faster than he can think it through – he reaches across the table and grabs Sebastian's wrist.
Sebastian's skin is cold and harsh to touch as if he's spend several hours outside, in the cold and under the wind, without gloves. Which is stupid 'cause it's late spring, and it's only ever cold at night when all people prefer to stay inside buildings, whether their houses or nightclubs or anywhere else.
Sebastian flinches from the touch and tries to pull his hand free. It's not that easy, though, without starting an unseemly fight in the middle of the Lima Bean, and he settles for hissing:
"Let me go, gayface!"
"What happened?" Kurt asks.
No forthcoming insults this time. He just wants to know what the hell happened. He's a kind and sympathetic person, isn't he? That's why he's the good guy, and Sebastian's the bad guy – because Kurt knows what sympathy and humanity is.
"Nothing happened, apart from the sad fact than you still waste oxygen as if you're supposed to," Sebastian spits. "Wanna do me a favour? Go back to whatever girly hell you came from."
Kurt still holds onto Sebastian's wrist, feeling the cold skin grow warmer under his own; Sebastian's still standing, half-turned away, and it must look really ridiculous from an outsider's point of view. Maybe it is ridiculous, but Kurt knows for sure that the moment he lets Sebastian go, the latter will flee the Lima Bean.
Just this morning Kurt would love the idea of this. But not right now, when there's a knot in his stomach caused by Sebastian's haunted, wild eyes and feverish pulse under Kurt's fingers.
"Somehow," he says slowly, "I don't think it'd resolve any of your problems."
"What do you know of my problems anyway?" Sebastian snaps.
Kurt is kind and sympathetic, that is undoubtedly true. But he's no saint.
"Sit down!" he snaps in return and pulls Sebastian's hand with force, making him fall gracelessly back onto his chair. "Drink," he orders, pushing his own pretty much untouched cup to Sebastian across the table. "Slowly."
Sebastian sits there, looking at Kurt, mute and unmoving, and it unnerves Kurt quite a lot. But then Sebastian reaches for the cup cautiously as if expecting Kurt to take it back any moment and lifts it to his lips.
Kurt watches him take the first sip and lick his lips for invisible remaining drops; and then Sebastian downs the cup greedily in a few gulps, with his eyes closed and his finders clutching at the cup so strongly that his knuckles whiten.
If Kurt didn't know already that something was seriously wrong, he'd know now, when Sebastian puts the cup on the table and looks at Kurt again, and Sebastian's eyes shine suspiciously.
God, is he going to cry? Kurt isn't sure he can handle that.
"Your coffee totally sucks," Sebastian says after a pause, his voice sounding rusty and not mocking at all. "It was disgusting."
"You're welcome," Kurt says. "Will you tell me now what happened?"
Sebastian winces like it was a blow, not a question.
"Surprising as it might be, there are things under the sun that are no business of yours," he says. 'Ladyface', or 'ladyboy', or something else along those lines hangs in the air, left unsaid for some reason.
Kurt bites his lower lip absent-mindedly, thinking of what to do to make Sebastian talk. He has to give credit to the bastard for choosing to keep silent exactly when Kurt actually wants to hear something from him.
"Let's strike a deal," Kurt says. "I buy you a cup of coffee to your obnoxious taste and a muffin, and you tell me what happened."
Sebastian stares at Kurt like there's suddenly an extra head on Kurt's shoulders.
"Well?" Kurt prompts.
"Do I get to choose the muffin too?" Sebastian asks with a snort.
"Sure," Kurt says.
"Deal then," Sebastian says incredulously.
Kurt gets up and walks over to the counter to order what he promised.
"Chocolate muffin, if you please! And a double espresso with whipped cream, hazelnut syrup, cinnamon and sugary sprinkles!" Sebastian shouts to Kurt's back.
"Seriously?" Kurt mutters under his breath. "Who the hell is more of a girl here, huh?"
He orders as asked, and when he's back at the table, Sebastian is still there, although he looks nervous and fidgety like he's not really comfortable to be where he is. Well, that makes two of them.
Kurt puts the coffee and the muffin in front of Sebastian, feeling like he's trapped inside of some kind of Mad Tea Party with coffee instead of tea, and sits down.
He watches Sebastian literally devouring the muffin, not so messily as Finn devours pizza or potato chips, but very quickly and efficiently. It looks like Sebastian is starving this afternoon, and Kurt doesn't like the idea of a horror that must have happened to make someone as full of himself as Sebastian to neglect his basic needs.
Maybe that's why he wanted whipped cream and sugary sprinkles in his coffee – because he is hungry, and whipped cream contains a hell of a lot of calories. But why on earth couldn't Sebastian just order something on his own or go home and eat there?
"Well?" Kurt says, when Sebastian reluctantly puts his empty cup on the table.
"It was my dog's funeral last week," Sebastian says. "Very, very tragic. I've been grieving inconsolably since then."
Kurt snorts, unable to resist.
"Did you really think I'd buy this crappiest of all the crappy excuses?"
"Was worth a try," Sebastian smirks, but this sign of the old cocky Sebastian disappears just as soon as it appears. "Listen, I gotta go. Would love to stay and have a lady chat with you, but places to be, people to see…"
"Again, did you really?" Kurt repeats. It's not fair that Sebastian tries to pull off such bullshit after Kurt has upheld his side of the deal. But then again, does Sebastian even know what 'fair' means?
Sebastian sighs. All the fight is suddenly drawn out of him. He hunches in his chair, crossing his arms on his chest in a defensive gesture.
"Hummel," he says. "Why the hell do you want to know?"
Kurt shrugs. He honestly doesn't know. He can't even say to himself that it's because he's a nice person, because even nice people don't buy their mortal enemies chocolate muffins – or any kinds of muffins, to think of it. There are some boundaries to politeness and kindness, and Kurt feels like he's already overstepped them.
"Well," Sebastian says quietly. "If you want to rub it in my face how miserable I am after hearing the story, then, I figure, I owe you that much for two cups of coffee, a muffin and your endlessly amusing idiocy."
"Spill, Smythe." Kurt tilts his head to the side.
Sebastian takes the empty cup in his hands and studies the picture on the side of the cup with what looks like genuine interest.
"My father came to visit me at Dalton on Thursday, and he showed up earlier than expected," he says. "He walked in on me with another boy."
He outlines the rims of the cup with the tips of his fingers. Kurt waits, a tad nauseous from the presentiment of something truly, truly bad.
"He disowned me right there and then, 'cause, apparently, Smythes can't be fags, therefore fags can't be Smythes, that kind of logic. He also withdrew the tuition fee from Dalton immediately, forbade me to come home ever again and left."
Sebastian is squeezing the cup very tightly now, dropping the pretence of being interested in the picture or anything else.
"I had to leave Dalton before the curfew: with my tuition unpaid, I had no rights to be on the grounds. And I, well, I have nowhere to go to. It's warm in here, though, and they don't pay attention to someone who doesn't order anything if it's as crowded as today."
He stops talking and inhales deeply, his eyes unblinking and unseeing and shiny again.
"Oh God," whispers Kurt. "God, Sebastian, I had no idea…"
You were always out, he wants to say. Everyone knew, you were hitting on everything that moves and has a dick, well, except for me. You were so at ease with yourself…
He stops himself before he can say any of this. Evidently, even if Sebastian himself had no problem accepting his sexuality, his family did.
"What about your mum?" Kurt asks, still whispering. He doesn't want to think that Sebastian's mother took the father's side.
"I'd ask her opinion on the matter if I was a medium or something." One corner of Sebastian's lips twitches, and Kurt doesn't like the thought of both a possible smirk and possible tears. "She died when I was, like, a couple of hours old."
"I'm sorry," Kurt says. "For everything, for both of your parents…"
"Now you know," Sebastian interrupts. "And we can both be on our merry ways…"
"Wait! You said you don't have anywhere to go. Do you have any money? Anything?"
"I had some things but I got mugged Thursday night." That corner twitches again. "I'm thinking of selling my phone – it fell out of my pocket, I found it under a bench when they took everything else and left. Do you want to buy a new phone, Hummel? It's working alright, although the screen is kind of cracked."
Thursday night. It's Saturday afternoon now. A shiver of self-disgust runs down Kurt's spine when he remembers how smug and glad he was to see Sebastian looking like a wreck fifteen minutes ago.
"No," he says. "No, I don't want a phone. But you, um, you can stay at my place. You know. At least for a night. My dad won't mind if I explain."
Sebastian's face is frozen in some expression that Kurt can't really define. He looks like he's about to either run or slap Kurt and the only thing stopping him is the matter of choice.
Kurt decides not to wait until Sebastian comes to the obvious conclusion that he can do both if he chooses the right order of things, and says, hearing himself talk quicker and higher with every word:
"I mean it, you know. You can have dinner with us and sleep on the couch, and it's not like it's a hardship, I mean, if you aren't going to kill us in our sleep, then it'd definitely be a hardship and a reckless decision, but you'll do something stupid or die, which is stupid too, to be honest, if you stay outside for much longer, and your body will stink all over the town, and I'm sure you'll become a ghost and will start haunting us just because you're a jackass like that, and, well, I don't want all that, do I?"
He is short of breath and he stops to regain some semblance of dignity. Sebastian is staring at Kurt with his mouth slightly open as though he wanted to say something and opened it, and then thought better than that and forgot to close his mouth again. His face looks decidedly undecipherable.
"I guess, you don't," Sebastian says slowly. "Want me to haunt your sorry girly ass, that is."
"Absolutely," Kurt says, oddly relieved to hear a familiar insult after everything they've just told each other.
"It would be unbearably boring, you know," Sebastian says, and he looks right now every bit the arrogant selfish bastard despite his quite pathetic state. "Haunting you and you crazy friends for all eternity – it sounds like a punishment. So…"
"So?"
"So yeah. I'll do you a favour, Hummel, and I'll crash at your house for the night."
Sebastian doesn't look like he's the one doing the favour, though. Kurt knows that they both know that it's very much more than Sebastian himself would have done for Kurt, had the latter happened to find himself in a similar situation. Also, it's more than anyone else Sebastian knows would do for him.
Well, there's that good guy and bad guy division. Good guys have a good reputation to uphold, you know, and an annoying ghost at one's heels, saying all kinds of offensive and dirty things day and night long, isn't exactly an example of a good PR-step, honestly.
"Okay then," Kurt says. "Let's go. I need to do my homework at some point today, and you need to wash that neck of yours, seriously."
They get up, not looking at each other, and walk out of the Lima Bean shoulder to shoulder, keeping at all times enough distance between them not to touch accidentally.
Oh Lord, Kurt thinks feebly, it's really happening. Sebastian fucking Smythe is about to spend a night under my roof.
If Kurt believed in God, he'd be sure that said almighty entity is currently laughing its ass off, looking down at him.