A/N: Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt 'first parental meeting'. AU, angst, hurt/comfort. This one-shot assumes that Sebastian met Kurt at Dalton before he left, but everything else pretty much follows canon. Warning for mention of Blaine/Klaine, the rock salt Slushie incident, and a veiled threat.
"Okay," Kurt says, grabbing his reusable cloth shopping bag from the back seat of Sebastian's Porsche Cayenne, "we have the wine, we have Carole's dozen roses, we have the salted caramel apple torte I promised to make – all the tools necessary to kiss up to my dad and my stepmom," Kurt teases. He keeps his taunting light. Sebastian is terrified, but Kurt knows his boyfriend. He'll have Carole won over in all of ten minutes, his dad will follow suit, and the rest of the evening will go swimmingly.
They'll fall in love with Sebastian before dessert is served.
He's told Sebastian that a dozen times.
Sebastian, however, doesn't seem all too convinced.
He sits quietly in the driver's seat, ignoring Kurt's attempts to provoke him, staring straight ahead out the windshield, not making a move to get out of the car, and for a moment, Kurt is afraid that Sebastian is considering driving away and leaving him there.
"Babe?" Kurt tugs on Sebastian's sleeve to get his attention.
Sebastian nearly leaps out of his skin.
"Yeah, okay," he says loudly. "I'm fine. What?"
Sebastian turns to look at Kurt after his minor episode of verbal diarrhea with wide, fearful eyes.
"Relax," Kurt says, moving his hand up to Sebastian's shoulder and kneading at his tight, knotted muscles. "Just take some deep breaths. Everything is going to be fine."
"Yeah," Sebastian says, rolling his head back and forth while Kurt works on his neck, "fine. Everything is going to be fine. Good. Great. Stellar."
Kurt sighs.
"Come on, babe." Kurt leans over to plant a kiss on Sebastian's cheek. "Let's get this over with before you have a stroke."
Sebastian nods, but he doesn't move.
"Bas," Kurt says, his right hand hanging on the handle of the passenger door, "you're going to have to get out of the car, you know."
"I know that," Sebastian snaps. He still sounds nervous as hell but his response is snarkier, more Sebastian-esque, and it fills Kurt with hope that he's finally calming down.
"Alrighty then," Kurt says, opening the door and hopping out of the car. Kurt hears Sebastian open his door and he smiles.
First time meeting the folks.
It's understandable that Sebastian is tense.
When Kurt first met the Smythes, he shook so much on the way to their house he nearly vibrated into another dimension. He worried unendingly about everything – his clothes, his hair, the wine that they brought, but especially his voice, which tends to get higher and pitchier the more anxious he becomes.
But that visit went off without a hitch and Kurt is confident that this one will, too.
Of course, Kurt didn't have the dossier of douchebag acts that Sebastian had, but Kurt had spoken about that with his dad over and over until the subject had turned into a dead horse that Kurt kept kicking.
In summation, Kurt loved Sebastian, and Sebastian loved Kurt.
That's all that mattered to his dad, ergo tonight would be perfect.
Now, if he can just get Sebastian to walk up to the house.
The front door opens and Kurt's dad steps out onto the porch, waving at the two men still loitering by the car.
"Come on, guys," he calls. "Get your butts up here. Carole won't let us eat until you get in the house."
Sebastian takes a few hesitant steps. He gets as far as the curb and stops; he stands in front of the car, glued to his spot on the asphalt.
"Come on. Where's my cocky, no-nonsense, alpha male, huh?" Kurt urges, tugging a reluctant Sebastian up onto the sidewalk. "The one who doesn't let anyone or anything intimidate him?"
"This is different," Sebastian says, all his sass and fire gone from his voice.
"How is this different?" Kurt asks, becoming concerned when Sebastian starts to look greenish.
"This is your dad, babe," Sebastian explains. "And your stepmom. These are people who love you."
"Yes," Kurt says, "and they'll love you, too."
"No, they won't," Sebastian responds quietly. "Not after…"
Kurt thinks Sebastian is joking, playing the part of the frightened suitor. He laughs lightly, but when he feels the way Sebastian's hand shakes in his, he knows his boyfriend is genuinely scared.
"Sebastian…" Kurt lifts Sebastian's hand to his mouth and kisses his knuckles, feeling the tremors against his lips, "honey. You're shaking."
"I…I can't," Sebastian mutters without further explanation. He pulls his hand out of Kurt's grasp and walks backward. He stares at the house in front of him, and at the confused older man watching him leave. "I'm sorry, Kurt. I just…I can't."
"Sebastian?" Too stunned by Sebastian's retreat to follow him, Kurt's eyes plead with his boyfriend not to leave. "Sebastian, come inside. We'll talk this over. It'll be okay. You'll see."
Sebastian looks at Kurt once and shakes his head. He climbs into the driver's seat of the Porsche, turns the key in the ignition, and pulls away from the curb, disappearing into the night.
Sebastian's cell phone rings exactly twenty-three times, and each time he curses himself out for not picking up. He didn't want to leave. That image of Kurt standing by the curb, his face clouded with sorrow, his hands clutching his cloth bag, his eyes begging silently for Sebastian to change his mind, will haunt Sebastian. Even when they put this night behind them (which Sebastian is certain they will because Kurt wouldn't break up with him over this…would he?) he will see that image. Sebastian can chalk it up to another time when he epically failed Kurt.
Another stellar disappointment.
After an hour of driving, his phone stops ringing.
Two hours later, he finds himself pulling into the driveway of Dalton with no memory of how he drove that far. But this is where he first met Kurt – singing with the Warblers, swaying and doo-wopping behind Blaine Anderson – so this is one of Sebastian's happy places. It's the place where Sebastian goes to in his mind after every trying time, after every fight.
When things go bad, he goes back to the start.
Now that he's here, he doesn't know what to do, so he kills the engine and sits with his hands on the steering wheel, staring out over the lacrosse field, his mind sinking into the dark.
He doesn't get to sulk for too long before a pair of headlights pull up behind him. The pick-up truck they're attached to shuts off its engine and blocks his exit. Sebastian groans, preparing to explain to some overzealous rent-a-cop why he's creepily stalking an all-boys school this late at night.
Sebastian turns his ignition key to the auxiliary position and lowers his window, rattling off his excuses before the man approaching has a chance to say a word.
"I'm sorry, sir. I was just out for a drive and I needed a place to pull over…"
"That's a load of bull crap, and you and I both know it."
Sebastian's heart slams to a stop against his ribcage the moment Burt Hummel comes into view.
"Uh…how did you find me?" Sebastian asks, his voice wavering, his question weak.
"Kurt told me you'd probably end up here," Burt admits, "so I thought I'd try here first and work my way back to Lima."
"Oh," Sebastian answers, unable to think of anything more intelligent to say.
"You know, my son dragged you all the way from New York to Ohio," Burt begins. "He's back at the house waiting to introduce you to everyone that he loves."
"I know," Sebastian moans, dropping his head to the steering wheel, his cheeks burning with shame.
"So my question to you is, why are you out here sitting in the cold in the dead of night instead of back there with him?"
Sebastian sighs, his breath condensing into a cloud of fog in the steadily declining temperature of the car. He sits up straight and looks Burt full in the face, into the wise, intelligent green eyes staring expectantly at him, waiting for an answer.
"Because, I thought you wouldn't like me," Sebastian says. "I thought you might even ask me to leave."
"You've got a point," Burt says with a nod. "From what I heard about you when my son was in high school, you were quite the bastard."
Sebastian bites his tongue, afraid of saying something he might regret to the man whose approval he wants so badly.
"But I've changed," Sebastian argues. "I'm not that guy anymore."
"Exactly," Burt agrees. "So why are you running away?"
Sebastian looks down at his hands, gripping the steering wheel.
"I didn't think you could forgive me that easily."
"You're right again," Burt says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other in an effort to stay warm. "I didn't. Not for a long time. I mean, put yourself in my shoes – you blackmailed my stepson, you almost blinded Blaine…"
"That was…that was an accident," Sebastian cuts in. "It was a prank that went horribly, horribly wrong."
"Yeah, a reckless prank," Burt points out. "A dangerous prank, and if I remember correctly, it was originally meant for my son."
Sebastian bows his head. He tries to think of something witty to respond with, something smart, something that will explain all of his past behavior away, but there is nothing. Nothing except -
"I'm sorry." Sebastian looks back at Burt. "I am so, so sorry."
Burt bobs his head in that same exact way Kurt does when he's mulling over what he's about to say.
"Look, Sebastian…" Burt claps his hand on Sebastian's shoulder, "life's too short for me to be holding grudges. If Kurt loves you, all I'm going to accomplish by hating you is pushing him away."
"I see that," Sebastian says. "I guess I felt…you and Carole seemed so head over heels for Blaine and…I'm nothing like Blaine."
"Yeah, well, I liked Blaine," Burt says. "I'll admit it, but that's because he made my son happy...until he didn't. Then, I didn't like him so much anymore. Do you make my son happy?"
Sebastian gives Burt's question a moment's thought. He thinks up every time he made Kurt laugh, every time he made Kurt smile, every night they spent together…
"I'd like to think I do," Sebastian concludes.
Burt gives Sebastian's shoulder a firm squeeze.
"Then, I'd say we're off to a good start."
Sebastian nods, starting at last to relax.
"So, what do I do?" he asks, eager to rewind the night and start over again, at least figuratively.
"What you do is you grow a pair," Burt suggests, "you go back to the house, and you take your licks, kiddo. And after Kurt forgives you, which if I know him, he already has, you get on with dinner, and prove to me that you're not a bastard."
Burt gives Sebastian's shoulder one final squeeze and turns to walk back to his car.
"But, how can you trust me?" Sebastian calls after him, needing one more bit of reassurance before he does what Burt says. "I mean, how can you be so sure?"
"Because I trust my son," Burt says with a shrug. "And besides, I'm a congressman. I can smell bullshit from a mile away. The point is, if Kurt's willing to give you a second chance, then so am I."
Sebastian's lips twist into his usual sardonic grin as he feels more at ease with this man he was so blindly afraid of.
"Uh, just out of curiosity," Sebastian says, stopping him one more time, "what would you have done if I hadn't changed?"
Burt doesn't give the question a thought before he answers.
"Well, son, I have a loaded shotgun in the truck, and we live a stone's throw from the Auglaize River…" Burt waits a moment for his words to sink in. "I think you get the picture."
Sebastian's grin drops dead off his face. Burt laughs, shaking his head. He walks off, leaving a stunned Sebastian to watch him get back into his pick-up truck and drive away.