A/N: I wrote this for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt "college AU" and never uploaded it. Here it is. Warning for language, drinking, being drunk, talk about sex. Mention of Blaine/Klaine. Not Blaine friendly.
Kurt pulls up to the curb in front of The High Life and leaves the engine running. When the call came in, he didn't even need to wait for the address. There's only one person who calls Dial-A-Ride on Friday nights and requests him personally, and that person only goes clubbing at The High Life – probably because it's as far from the NYU campus as you can possibly get without leaving the city.
Kurt sits and waits, sending a text from the Dial-A-Ride cell phone to the man who called for him, but the bouncers at the door know Kurt's white van by now, and they know who he's there for.
That's comforting, Kurt thinks with a heavy sigh.
Well, there is something to be said for routine.
Kurt smiles tight-lipped when he sees Bryce (one of the more patient bouncers at the club) help a limping and stumbling Sebastian Smythe out to the van. Sebastian sees Kurt sitting impatiently behind the wheel and his face lights up. He smiles sloppily and waves with one arm, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Hi, Kurt!" as if Kurt can't hear him easily through the open van window. Kurt gets out of the van, cursing once again the elective requirement for his fashion designing major that forced him into this position. It had been a choice between taking an extra (though entirely unnecessary) liberal arts class or volunteer one night a week at Dial-A-Ride.
Kurt made the wrong choice. He sees that. He should have taken Wood Working. By now he could have a beautiful, if slightly lopsided, mahogany end-table, and absolutely no weekly interaction with Sebastian Smythe.
Within the first three Fridays of working at Dial-A-Ride, Kurt had been chosen at random (or so he thought) to go to a different club – Off the Wagon - to pick up Sebastian, and the insufferable man has been special requesting him ever since. In truth, Kurt should be pissed at Carl, his shift manager, for humoring this whim of Sebastian's. Kurt had made the mistake of complaining (at length) about Sebastian to some of the other volunteers in Carl's presence, and Carl…well, Carl seems to enjoy Kurt's pain.
It doesn't matter. Kurt has reason enough to be miffed at Sebastian. After Sebastian realized he could have Kurt at his beck and call, he purposefully switched nightclubs. Off the Wagon is a stone's throw from NYU, where Sebastian attends school, so when Kurt picked him up from there, he only had to endure five minutes of Sebastian's obnoxious banter. But by switching to The High Life, Kurt has to suffer nearly forty-five minutes of incessant flirting and lewd remarks.
Kurt gets out of the vehicle and rounds to the curb side, waving at Bryce and ignoring Sebastian. He opens the rear passenger door and Sebastian smiles the way he always does - smug, even as he's falling over himself, at the thought of Kurt playing chauffeur. Kurt has explained before that the child safety locks on the rear doors force him to open them from the outside, but Sebastian calls him Jeeves and chuckles like he just remembered the punchline of a hilarious joke.
"Hey, Bryce," Kurt says, smiling as the muscular bouncer manhandles Sebastian into the van.
"Hey, Kurt," Bryce says with a grunt as he tries to maneuver Sebastian's boneless spaghetti limbs onto the seat without him tipping back out of the vehicle. "Rough night?"
"Nah," Kurt replies, trying not to laugh when he hears Sebastian yell, Ow! Watch it! "It's been kind of slow. You?"
"Oh, you know," Bryce says, holding Sebastian upright in the seat by the collar of his shirt, "the usual."
Kurt smiles and takes over, ducking under Bryce's arm and shoving Sebastian into a lying down position on the rear bench.
"What if he horks?" Bryce asks, remembering the last time Sebastian puked on the van floor. Kurt had told Bryce that no matter how hard they cleaned, the stench wouldn't come out for weeks.
"We've got a new cleaning company," Kurt assures him. "And with any luck, he'll be my last run."
Last run because this is Kurt's last night at Dial-A-Ride.
Thank God this semester's over, Kurt thinks with a mental cheer. No more Dial-A-Ride means no more Sebastian, and Kurt can finally get his sanity back.
Carl's supervisor Paul had asked Kurt if he might think about becoming a permanent volunteer. They only had the four volunteers so far, and of those, Kurt was the only guy. Kurt had smiled his warmest smile and promised that he would think about it, but in his head he said, Not a chance!
"Well, you take care of yourself," Bryce says, smiling with his eyes as he turns back to the nightclub.
"I will," Kurt calls after him, watching the huge man disappear into the dark club, leaving Kurt alone with a drunk Sebastian in the backseat of the van.
"Well, hello-" Sebastian slurs, but Kurt cuts him off by slamming the van door hard, hoping it makes his inebriated head spin.
Kurt takes a moment to breathe in the night air, stretch his legs, and enjoy the relative normalcy that exists outside of that stupid van. He watches the crowd gather at the nightclub door, listens to the distant thump-thump-thump of the bass music from inside, looks up to gaze at the few stars he can see in the city, and steels himself for the ride ahead.
It strikes him, ironically, that he's been to this club about a dozen times, if not more, and he's never stepped inside. It actually looks like a place he'd like to go to if it was closer to home…and if he had someone to go with. Maybe he could get Rachel and Santana to…
A knock behind his head, from inside the van, derails his daydreaming.
"Kuuuuurt," Sebastian calls through the tinted rear window. "Kurtie…Kurtie-kins…Kurt-sicle…" Sebastian's voice dissolves into giggles as he falls back down on the seat.
Kurt groans, stomping over to the driver's side and gets into the van.
Last night, he repeats in his head as he opens the door and slips into his seat. This is my last night.
"This is absolutely the last time, Smythe," Kurt says, slamming the driver's side door as well.
"Awww, you…you always say that," Sebastian drawls, voice high and child-like, giggling again as he scoots inch by inch down the bench to lie out completely.
"And I mean it," Kurt says, jabbing the key into the ignition, trying to focus on what it will feel like to return the van keys for the last time.
"Awww, you don't mean it," Sebastian says, his voice muffled by his face pressed into the cold vinyl seat. "I know that…that deep, deep down…you like me." Sebastian keeps giggling, like he can't help himself, like he doesn't believe what he's saying.
"This time I do," Kurt says to himself, putting the van into drive and pulling away from the curb. Kurt hears Sebastian shift in his seat, trying to sit up. He waits for the comments, the insults, the one-sided battle of wits to begin.
There's a long, unexpected silence, followed by a soft snore, and Kurt relaxes. Not tonight. He gets a break from it for tonight.
What a perfect parting gift.
Kurt merges onto the highway, his mind beginning to wander, thinking about what an exhausting semester this has been.
"Could you have picked a farther fucking club?" Kurt griped, turning the key in the ignition, sneering quietly when Sebastian laughed.
"Well, I would have gone to Jersey, but you guys don't service out there."
Kurt rolled his eyes, knowing it wasn't a joke, that Sebastian had probably considered it.
"Hey…hey, Kurt," Sebastian slurred. "This is a big van."
"Yes, it is," Kurt replied, blowing out a breath and merging onto the highway, curbing the urge to speed - to fly back to NYU - no matter how much he wants to be rid of Sebastian.
"And this is a big backseat," Sebastian continued, patting the bench seat with the flat of his hand, making a sharp slapping noise that seemed to amuse him so he did it again.
Then he started beating out a rhythm and singing along off-key.
"Yes, it is a big backseat," Kurt murmured, deciding to be the bare-minimum of hospitable and praying Sebastian fell asleep like a lot of the people Kurt picked up.
"So, why don't…why don't you pull over…climb back here…and get down on this?"
The sound that followed was Sebastian pulling down the zip to his jeans.
"Jesus Christ, Smythe," Kurt groaned, reaching a hand over the back of his seat and blindly smacking Sebastian on what he hoped was his arm. "Put that away. You're as bad as you were in high school."
"Nope," Sebastian said, laughing at Kurt's attempts to hit him. "I'm better. You should try me out."
"It wouldn't do me any good," Kurt said, returning both his hands to the steering wheel, determined to keep his eyes on the road no matter what. "I never slept with you in high school, so I don't know how good you were."
"That's…that's right," Sebastian said. "You wouldn't sleep with me in high school."
"That is true," Kurt said, "but it's not like you offered, either."
Kurt didn't know why he sounded bitter saying that. Maybe it's because a boy who would strip naked and fuck a park bench seemed to have absolutely no interest in looking Kurt sideways. As much as Kurt hated Sebastian, that bruised his ego a bit.
It added one more thing to the pile of 'why everybody else and not me?'
"It wasn't…" Sebastian stuttered, tripping over his tongue, "not because…"
Sebastian actually sounded sorry, but for the comment or for the past rejection, he couldn't seem to decide. Kurt watched Sebastian's eyes shift back and forth between the options in his mind and shook his head.
"Spit it out, Smythe," Kurt said, taking the exit that would bring them back into the city.
"Kurt…you were…hot in high school…" Sebastian sputtered. Kurt saw Sebastian's head peek up over the back of his seat and look over his shoulder. "You're still hot," he slurred, finishing with another spattered laugh. "But you were so wrapped up with Bland…"
"Blaine," Kurt corrected, a small smile touching his lips before disappearing again, "and I'm not anymore."
"Oh…" Sebastian said, sounding sincerely apologetic. "That's too…that's too bad."
"Yeah," Kurt agreed, pulling up to the curb in front of the university where a group of guys stood waiting for them.
"Yeah," Sebastian repeated, his eyes staring blankly into the rearview mirror. When Kurt sneaked a peek, Sebastian caught his eyes and smiled. "So…did you want to fuck?"
Kurt sighed.
"Thank you, but no," he said, finding that it wasn't as easy to be angry with Sebastian, seeing him behave like such a fool. "Maybe another time."
Saying that last part was another big mistake.
How could Kurt know that in his drunken stupor, Sebastian would remember that one thing?
Not only did he remember it, he seemed to latch onto it like a lifesaver.
"So, when you gonna let me have it?" Sebastian asked on his fifth pick-up, laughing so loud in the van that Kurt's ears rang for an hour after.
That was the way Sebastian greeted Kurt every time he got in the van after that first night, and Kurt was getting tired of it.
"Well, if I was going to let you have it," Kurt started as they pulled away from the club, "not that I'm saying I ever would, you'd have to be nice…"
"Pfft…I can do nice," Sebastian said, waving his hand in front of his face and knocking himself over in the process.
"You'd have to be sober," Kurt continued.
There was a pregnant pause, and then Sebastian laughed.
"Just kidding, just kidding, I can totally do sober."
Kurt felt like he was on a roll, so he barely thought before he spoke again.
"And you would have to be someone other than you."
There was another pause, and Kurt waited for Sebastian to spit out another laugh and make another witty comment, but he didn't.
Kurt looked into the rearview mirror to catch a glimpse Sebastian's face – his jaw dropped, embarrassed shock in eyes that always had a smile in them.
"Well, shit, Kurt," he said, sliding down low onto the bench.
Sebastian didn't speak again the whole ride.
Kurt thought for sure he had passed out, but he hadn't. As soon as the van pulled to the curb in front of NYU and parked, Sebastian struggled to sit up, opened the door, and stepped out before his gaggle of friends could rush to help him.
"Th-thanks for th' ride," he stammered, shutting the door quietly behind him, and for the first time, Kurt felt sorry for putting Sebastian down.
But that's what they did. Sebastian made a crude remark at Kurt, Kurt volleyed back with something bitchy, and life went on.
Why not this time?
Kurt thought about that conversation the entire week, which burned him up because he didn't want to feel sorry for Sebastian. He didn't want to feel anything for Sebastian. And now he felt he had to apologize.
But that Friday night, when Sebastian came out to the curb to get into the van, he seemed to have gotten over it and gone back to being his old self…except this time, he had a friend.
"Come on, come on," Kurt called through the open window at the two men so completely wrapped around one another that Kurt couldn't tell which appendage belonged to whom, "I'm only here to pick you up, Sebastian. I'm not here for your friend."
"Awww," both men groaned in unison.
"But can't my friend here come along?" Sebastian pouted the way he did whenever he teased Kurt, and lately it seemed to always make Kurt smile. "He's lots of fun and you're no fun at all. It'll be like yin and yang."
Kurt shuddered at how sexual Sebastian made that sound.
"Sorry," Kurt said, not sounding sorry at all. "Sebastian only."
"Oh, alright," Sebastian whined. He turned to the man wrapped around him. "I have to go."
Sebastian's anonymous friend from the bar attached himself to Sebastian's mouth like a parasite. Never before had a kiss good-bye made Kurt want to retch the way this one did. Kurt spotted the nameless face-sucker pull his hand out of the front of Sebastian's jeans and he turned away, disgusted by the crassness of it, at this man groping Sebastian outside on the sidewalk, in full view of people passing by.
But he was more disturbed by the strange twist his stomach did when he saw it. Luckily, the twist only lasted a second.
"Boo," Kurt heard the other man mutter when the two finally broke for air. "Your mom's a real drag."
"Don't be rude," Sebastian said, pulling away from the man's tentacle-like grasp. "He's a…he's a good guy. Show some respect."
It surprised Kurt that Sebastian would defend him like that, but more so because he genuinely sounded annoyed.
Kurt smiled, his cheeks growing red. Kurt had started to feel that he might be developing an affection for Sebastian - and how bad would that be, really?
Until Sebastian lied down in the backseat and vomited all over the floor.
"He's all yours, honey," Kurt heard the face-sucker huff. He slammed the door, locking Kurt in the van with Sebastian and the stench of rank secondhand alcohol.
"Jesus Christmas," Kurt groaned, opening all the windows and turning on the air conditioning, leaning out the window as he pulled the van away.
"I'm…I'm sorry about that, Kurt," Sebastian muttered.
"Yeah, well, you're paying to have it cleaned up."
"Whatever," he mumbled. Kurt peeked back in the rearview to see Sebastian face down on the bench seat. He looked so pathetic - so unlike the criminal chipmunk Sebastian Smythe that Kurt once knew - that Kurt couldn't help feeling sorry for him.
"You know, this probably isn't a healthy thing that you're doing to your liver, Sebastian."
Kurt heard a pfft from the man in the backseat, but that was all.
"At least I saved you the embarrassment of having sex with your little friend out on the sidewalk."
Kurt didn't know why he had suddenly become so chatty. Keeping Sebastian quiet during these rides was pretty much the goal.
He also didn't know why he had added a derisive emphasis to the words little friend. What did Kurt care that Sebastian was attached tonsil deep to that troglodyte?
Except that Kurt missed kissing. He missed having someone to kiss, and even if he didn't want to admit it, he always imagined Sebastian would be a good kisser.
"Why would that have been embarrassing?" Sebastian asked, not moving from his face down position in the seat.
"I don't know," Kurt said, voice thick with condescension.
"I'd totally do it on the sidewalk," Sebastian remarked, lifting himself to an upright position. "With you, at least, because…because you're so pretty…"
"Thanks," Kurt said, his tone dry but his heart suddenly racing. "I think."
"Oh, that's totally a compliment," Sebastian assured him, smacking the back of Kurt's seat as if he was patting him on the back.
Kurt felt slightly triumphant, though he tried not to.
"So, your little friend wasn't pretty enough to do it on the sidewalk with?" Kurt asked, continuing the conversation only because he was uncomfortable with the tension he felt rising in the van.
"Oh, hell no," Sebastian said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. "No…I mean, we fucked in the bathroom, but I wouldn't do him in public." Sebastian leaned forward in his seat, looking at Kurt through the rearview mirror. "But I would totally have sidewalk sex with you."
"Great," Kurt responded with a stiff, humorless smile.
After that admission, Sebastian's compliment (so-called) wasn't as endearing to Kurt as it had been seconds earlier.
Kurt tried to put distance between them, establish boundaries and stomp out the affection he thought he felt building. He cut out the chitchat, going back to simply tossing barbs in response to comments that Sebastian threw at him and keeping his eyes on the road, but when he did, it didn't make him feel better about this whole situation.
He felt lost and confused. He was still fresh from his broken engagement with Blaine. He couldn't handle Sebastian. He couldn't handle these feelings. The faster he could be done with this, the better. Then he could let whatever these feelings were fade away into the background of studying for his finals and trying to get Isabelle to go with his idea for this month's top story on the Vogue website – spikes and studs, the new must have embellishment.
Sebastian must have felt something change, or maybe he's still as cruel as he's always been.
Maybe he spoke to Carl and figured out that their time together was coming to an end, and he wanted a chance to hit Kurt below the belt once before it was all over.
Whatever his motivation, last Friday's conversation cemented the realization that Kurt needed to get as far away from Sebastian as he could…before he put himself in danger of having his heart broken again.
"How come you never talk about Blaine?" Sebastian asked.
The question came out of leftfield and hit Kurt so hard that he almost slammed on the brakes in the middle of the highway.
"Wh-what?" Kurt asked, hoping that he hadn't heard Sebastian right.
"You never talk about Blaine," Sebastian said, staring at Kurt with pensive, albeit bloodshot, eyes. "How come?"
"Because he isn't part of my life anymore," Kurt answered, speaking in vague truths that he might use to explain difficult concepts to children…or drunken past-nemesis.
"But why isn't he a part of your life anymore?" Sebastian pressed, sounding surprisingly sober all of a sudden. "Why aren't you two together anymore? Why did he break up with you? What did you do?"
Kurt curled his fingers around the steering wheel, gripping it hard. If he had a quarter for every time someone asked him that question…
"How do you know I didn't break up with him?" Kurt asked, reading every road sign he passed in his head to keep himself steady.
"Did you?" Sebastian asked with a raised brow – his face taking on a skeptical expression that Kurt wanted to slap off.
"As a matter of fact, yes, I did," Kurt said, turning his head around to face Sebastian for a second. "I felt that we were too young to get married."
He returned his eyes to the road and his mind to reading the road signs.
"Pffft, yeah, right," Sebastian muttered, dropping his head back on the seat.
Kurt turned back around to glare at him, but his bitch face was wasted since Sebastian stared at the ceiling and didn't look at him.
"You don't think that's a valid reason?" Kurt asked in a haughty tone.
It had been Kurt's go-to reason. He stood by it. He was more than willing to defend it.
"I do," Sebastian said, lifting his head to lock eyes with Kurt through the mirror. "I just don't honestly think it's your reason."
"Well, whether you like it or not, it is," Kurt said, speeding the van up a little, trying to get back to the city faster if this was the way the things were going to go.
Figures that the first slightly sober conversation he could pry out of Sebastian would turn out this way.
"So, who are you dating now?" Sebastian asked, eyes boring into Kurt's reflection.
"Why such an interest in my love life?" Kurt asked, checking the upcoming exit sign, then checking it again, knowing it wasn't the one he needed but hoping all the same.
"Just curious why you spend every Friday night driving my drunk ass home and not out on the town," Sebastian said matter-of-factly enough to sound insulting.
"Well, it's none of your damn business," Kurt said, locking eyes with Sebastian to convey how done he was with this line of questioning. "Not everyone needs to get drunk off their ass every Friday night to enjoy themselves."
That seemed to shut Sebastian up, but not for long.
"So…do you?" Sebastian asked.
Kurt scoffed. Apparently Sebastian couldn't interpret facial cues, though more than likely he didn't care that he was tramping over boundaries and delving into personal and off-limit topics of conversation. Of course, Kurt would be fair game for him to pick apart. They weren't friends (were they?). Besides, Kurt had been Sebastian's punching bag of choice in high school. Why should college change anything?
"Not answering," Kurt said firmly.
"Ah," Sebastian replied, a smirk melting a bit of his serious expression. "That means you don't."
Kurt sighed.
"If I give you an answer, will you shut the hell up?"
"Nope," Sebastian said, his smirk growing wider, "because you already gave me the answer."
Kurt clenched his teeth hard – so hard that his head throbbed.
"Fine," Kurt said. "You're so fucking brilliant. You're so Goddamned smart, going out drinking every Friday, calling me to pick your ass up when you can't stand on your own. You don't have any one either. But that's okay, right? Because any hand or mouth will do, and a nightclub bathroom is about as romantic as you get. So maybe Blaine and I fizzled. Maybe he cheated, and then he lied, and then everything about us went to crap. So what? At least I can say I wasn't stupid enough to get so desperate that I ended up in a nightclub bathroom with you."
Kurt gasped. He had let his mouth run away on him again. He was upset, yes, but he hadn't intended on saying all of that, especially since he didn't really mean it. Who knew what Sebastian was going through? Maybe he had somebody in his life that broke him the way Blaine had broken Kurt. Maybe he didn't. That didn't give Kurt the right to judge.
Sebastian was obnoxious and an asshat, but Kurt wasn't really angry at him and all his uninvited questions.
He was angry at someone else that he hadn't had the chance to unleash on.
Himself.
Kurt swallowed hard as the words hung in the air. He peeked into the rearview and caught Sebastian's gaze, but Sebastian didn't look hurt the way he had before.
He looked almost happy.
"But I'm alright being alone," Kurt said in a calmer tone, turning off the highway, not as relieved as he thought he'd be at seeing their exit. "I don't need a Mr. Right Now. I'm willing to wait for Mr. Right."
This time, when they pulled up outside of the NYU campus, there was no one waiting to meet them. Kurt looked up and down the street to make sure, then opened his door and hopped out of the van, rounding the van to open Sebastian's door. He expected to have to help Sebastian out of the vehicle, but he was downright dexterous for a man who was supposedly so drunk he had to call for a ride home.
Sebastian took a step out and then turned, crowding Kurt up against the side of the van.
"Finding a Mr. Right Now is not always a bad thing," Sebastian said, leaning in so he could address Kurt in a whisper. "Sometimes Mr. Right Now can turn into Mr. Right if you give him the chance. And by the way, a nightclub bathroom can be hella romantic."
Sebastian pushed off the van and walked away toward the dorms, not turning back to see Kurt still stuck to the vehicle, paralyzed by those words – words that Kurt could feel seep their way into his skin, straight to his toes. Kurt took a breath to clear his head, realizing belatedly that Sebastian didn't smell like he had a lick of alcohol on his breath.
But that's not the case tonight. Kurt could smell the whiskey on Sebastian before he even got into the van. He's drunk as a skunk and possibly high. Kurt figures it's probably the stress of finals getting to him that made him go this far, but he never took Sebastian as a person who cracked under academic pressure. Kurt remembered him in high school juggling AP Chemistry, AP French, AP European History, and AP Calculus all in the same semester.
There has to be something else going on.
But that's not Kurt's problem, and that's part of the reason why Kurt is so glad his stint with Dial-A-Ride is ending.
Because more and more he wants to make it his problem. He wants to talk to Sebastian about all of this. He wants to get to know him, start over, wipe the slate clean and become friends from the beginning, see if it turns into something more, but why? What has Sebastian done other than get drunk and hit on him that would make him feel this way? Maybe it's just him missing Blaine, projecting onto Sebastian because he's familiar, because he looks like fun, because he's an attractive, sexual creature…because he shows an interest, and not only the inappropriate kind.
There was a moment last Friday, during that insufferable conversation, when Kurt thought he saw what might be the real Sebastian, the one hiding underneath the lewd comments, the bathroom sex, and the alcohol. One that seemed to care about Kurt, even if only a little.
Kurt doesn't think he could ever fall in love with Sebastian, but what would it hurt to give him a chance?
Kurt can't. He doesn't want to take the chance of getting burned. What if Sebastian is exactly what he seems – rude and self-centered and vain? What if his only interest in Kurt is seeing how far he can push him until he breaks down and sleeps with him? Then Kurt will end up another notch in Sebastian's bedpost and he'll move along to some other conquest.
Kurt sighs in frustration as he takes the exit that will bring them to NYU. He wishes he could just ask Sebastian. If he could trust Sebastian to tell the truth, this would be so much easier. It might not change Kurt's mind, but at least it would stop driving him crazy.
Kurt pulls up to the curb and parks the van. He can see the group of Sebastian's friends walking at them from across campus and feels that twist in his stomach again. Sebastian will go back to his room, Kurt will return the van keys. When next Friday comes, Sebastian will call Dial-A-Ride and ask for him, and they'll tell him that Kurt no longer volunteers there.
It seems almost mean.
At least Sebastian is asleep so Kurt won't be forced to say something close to good-bye.
Kurt hears Sebastian giggle and shakes his head in defeat.
He's not getting away that easily.
"Psst," Kurt hears whispered from the backseat. He chooses to ignore it. Maybe if he doesn't say anything, Sebastian will fall back to sleep. "Psst, Charlie." Kurt rolls his eyes. Sebastian is so fucked up he doesn't even know that he's still in the van. "Hey, Charlie…"
"What is it?" Kurt answers, lowering his voice a register, not sure who Charlie is but confident that his voice is probably deeper than his.
Sebastian giggles again.
"I did it," Sebastian says. "I got him to drive me home again." Sebastian chuckles madly, as if this is some amazingly funny prank that he came up with, has been pulling on Kurt for weeks, and Kurt realizes with a bitter taste in his mouth that it is. To Sebastian, it is a prank, another way to get his kicks at Kurt's expense, a perfect way to top off a night of drinking and smoking and doing God only knows what in the bathroom at the bar.
Sebastian is exactly what he seems; Kurt's decision to cut all ties is the right one.
Some people will never change, and Sebastian is apparently one of those.
Maybe Kurt expected it, but he doesn't like the feeling of being used – or the realization that he actually has nothing better to do on a Friday night than be amusing to Sebastian Smythe.
That realization stings Kurt's tongue, tightens his throat, makes his ribs hurt. Kurt wants to hear it from Sebastian's lips once and for all so he doesn't find himself overthinking it late one Friday night when he's curled up by his bedroom window with a mug of warm milk, a copy of Vogue…and nothing else.
"Tell me," Kurt says, turning and looking over at Sebastian, slowly rising like a zombie off the (thankfully unsoiled) backseat, "why do you always call Dial-A-Ride and ask for me…I mean, Kurt? Why is this so funny to you?"
Sebastian's eyes, half-lidded and crossed, don't look at Kurt directly. Kurt wonders if Sebastian realizes he's drunk if he doesn't even know who he's talking to.
Sebastian isn't giggling anymore. Whatever the joke is, it seems to be over.
"Because," Sebastian chuckles sadly, staring down at the stitching in the seat cover, tracing over it with his finger, "he's a great, great guy and…and he would never give me the time of day otherwise."
The temperature in the van drops for Kurt long before the door opens and the usual suspects clamor around to gather their friend.
"Come on, Bas," a voice says as several hands reach in to pull him out of the vehicle. "Let's get you back to your room and leave the nice van guy alone."
Kurt gulps watching Sebastian go. He doesn't lift his eyes to look at Kurt once, doesn't acknowledge that Kurt is there, will probably have no memory of this conversation between them.
But Kurt will. He'll think about it when he turns in his van keys and goes back to his loft with no plans to see Sebastian again.
He'll wonder if Sebastian, in some twisted, bizarre, and despicable turn of fate, will turn out to be the one who got away.
"Hey, Kurt," one of the guys whose name Kurt has never bothered to learn - not in all this time - says, peeking in through the passenger window and waving. "Thanks for bringing him back safe."
"Any…any time," Kurt stutters, watching the guys drag Sebastian away, unsteady legs turning into Jell-O beneath him every other step.
"So, will we see you next Friday?"
Kurt looks up at the friend hanging behind to shut the door, sticking around to see Kurt off after Sebastian is well away.
"Yeah," Kurt answers, a little stunned, a little disbelieving that he's going to keep doing this…and why. "Yeah, you will."