#14 – From Kurt, to Sebastian – Part 7

Summary of the last few weeks in Kurt's perspective: 'do not accept alcohol from old women – specifically April Rhodes. Vitamin D is bad. Finn's love-life is as tangled as Kurt's hair in the morning and Finn still will not go out with him.'

Then, they had to mention Elphie. Kurt's heart was fluttering. This was the very musical he first saw when he got into singing due to the height of his depression. He must be the one to sing it. Rachel was all Funny Girl. She cannot have Wicked as well. Kurt was incredibly possessive all of a sudden. He felt furious. If anything in the world deserved that spot, it was him. For once, his Father was agreeing with him and things were starting to look up for him. He was going to win, hit that note that everyone doubted he could, and this was going to be one of the best experiences in his life.

Kurt thought that things were looking up then, but that phone call made Kurt lean backwards in realisation that all of his fears were true. He found himself crumbling at the thought of it during that performance. He did not hit that note. His Father was furious, and Kurt had to admit it. That was the first time in his life – Kurt realised, that he'd ever let anything of his insecurities slip towards his Father. This was only a tiny silver of his insecurities – what he was keeping back was far more than just a little uneasiness.

His Father knew it too. That day that Kurt had explained that he'd purposely let himself lose was the day that Burt was trying to speculate on every single thing.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Burt murmured, as he looked through the tools he had in that huge toolbox that could probably house all of Kurt's shoes – and that was saying something.

Burt's shop wasn't very big, but it wasn't too small either – Kurt had called it a tardis once. From the outside, it looked so minute but on the inside, so much bigger. Burt only raised his eyebrow, and Kurt had shrugged, not really explaining what he meant.

"Yeah," Kurt lied efficiently, though he didn't know how efficient the lie was if his Father still kept on asking him that question.

"You know," Burt began, rubbing his neck. "If singing and all that jazz doesn't work out for you, you should consider getting into acting because if I didn't know you, I'd have completely believed you. Unfortunately for you, kiddo, I know you better than I know myself."

"Well, that's debatable since myself is my actual self, what others think of me – that is you, and what I think of myself all tied up together in a knot. Unfortunately you only fit one category there, and I fit too. I am aware what I am and what I think I am and—"

"You aren't aware of what you can do though," Burt murmured, giving Kurt a wrench (there was something special about it that Kurt cannot remember) for him to hold whilst he looked for something else. "That's what makes you fail in knowing yourself. You don't recognise what you can and can't do, that's the problem with you. You're not the kind that wants to test those limits either. I had to go through thick and thin to push you in for this Glee club, you k now?"

Kurt was slightly surprised at his own Father's thought process. He smiled weakly, before nodding his head. "I know," he explained.

Then Burt's question was short, and curt. "How bad is it?"

Kurt knew what 'it' was. It could only be the depression really, and as far as Kurt was concerned, it wasn't that bad that he can't eat at all, or was eating everything in sight (oh, how he loved both of them). It wasn't bad that he was sleeping all the time or wasn't sleeping at all. It was bad enough that his sleeping was a little lighter than usual, or a little longer than usual, or that he underrate by a bit, or overate by a bit. His scale, however, shifted, and apparently, he'd lost three pounds last week, but this week had gained half of that back this week. His sleeping was making him a little moodier, but overall, he was just fine he'd say.

"Not too bad," Kurt finally announced.

Kurt didn't expect Burt to wrap his arms around him and pull him close. "If it gets too bad, you'd let me know, right?" Kurt nodded his head, as he let Burt give him another piece of equipment before telling him to follow him towards the car they were working on.

Kurt actually loved the work. Yes, it was terrible on his clothes – the stains, the sweat, and all of such, but the scent of the gasoline, the feel of the metal, the colours, and the ability to get something working – it was nice. Besides, Kurt Hummel did enjoy a challenge. Though he did not know the names of any of them, he was smart enough to figure out simpler jobs, which was why he was instructed with changing the lights in the back of the car (which he did not know the name for).

Just as he was working on that, his mind was drifting. The task itself was menial by this point, something he worked on time and time again. He didn't know if it was bad, or how bad it would get. He had lost all his ability to measure how bad the depression was a long time ago. He used to have a system, and he supposed he needed to get one in line. His Father was worried.

"How are things with that Glee club of yours?" Kurt heard Burt ask, before Burt lit up a fag. Kurt stared at the cigarette, and then pursed his lips.

"Can I have one?" Kurt asked, only for Burt to raise an eyebrow. "It's alright. We only managed to break two school rules this week, and nobody was harmed during it. Well, um…no real harm."

Burt finally offered Kurt a cigarette and his lighter along with it. Kurt lit his up, only to take a drag of the intoxicating smoke and then shook his head before offering it back to his Father whom was just laughing.

"Why did you let me do that?" Kurt swore that one puff of that smoke was enough to make him roll over in a blanket and die. "It tasted terrible! Absolutely terrible!"

"'Cause I knew it was going to bug you until you have one, and plus, I knew you wouldn't like it at all so I thought why the hell not?" Burt responded with a sheepish smile.

Kurt glared over at his Father, before he found himself snorting. "I suppose you really can say that you know me better than I know myself."

Kurt went back to working on the car, and was done with his job rather quickly – or really, quicker than usual. His Father was still working on a car that Kurt to be very appealing to his eyes. He'd never really looked at the cars they brought in – it all looked like scrap to him, but this one was rather nice-looking. "I like the car you're working on – I mean, how it looks."

"Really? You'd trade the one you have for this one?" Burt asked. Of course, Burt knew how the car looked like – he knew how every car that was brought in looked like, drank it up as if each of them had their own personality. It was pure insanity.

"No!" Kurt exclaimed, shaking his head. "The one I have is my baby. Though if my baby was to drive off a cliff, then I'd love to have this one."

Burt laughed and Kurt found himself flushing rather adamantly. "You ever let me tell you the story of the Mercedes Benz?"

"Is that what this is?" Kurt asked, staring at the car before noticing the logo. Oh. Yes.

"Yeah," Burt finally said, moving from his position. "Think about what this car was made, Kurt – about 127 years ago. You think they had a car back then? No. This was the first car of its kind, not this line of cars in particular, but the Mercedes Benz. You see, this guy called Karl – he basically invented it into a society that believed in witchcraft and demons and all of that jazz. They thought it was the work of the Devil, and refused to listen to that dude talk about it and all of that. So, you know what his wife did? She took his car over to drive to a house 100 kilometres away. Amazing, ain't it? Think about it. This woman doesn't know how to drive. Think of how hard it was for that chick to get there, but she did it. And people started to like the idea of going there with a car, so they did it. It was a success. The name was after his daughter. His name was Karl Benz, and his daughter, well…"

"Mercedes," Kurt announced with a slight flush to his cheek. "If whomever is gonna marry Mercedes in the future not get her that car, then I will lose it."

Burt shook his head before pulling himself up from under the car with a smile on his face. "Did the Kurt Hummel just combine cars with romance?"

Kurt realised this only to gasp in mock. "Wow, I really do bear some sort of semblance of relation to you!"

"Yeah, you missed my good looks gene," Burt jokingly responded, and Kurt shook his head, laughing lightly at his Father's statement.

Burt had decided to close up shop. It was getting impeccable late, and they descended down back towards their house where Kurt was to ask his Father about the money he was promised for helping out. Burt handed him over a good standard of money. Kurt was actually ridiculously overpaid – adorable son's advantage. They ate dinner, and Kurt forgot that that morning he'd just been crying his eyes out mindlessly.

After that dinner which included a lot of heart-fattening foods, Kurt had ascended upstairs just to pick up a book to read. His book choice nowadays was not so random as before that he'd just pick off any book from the shelf. Right now, anything that contained a mental disorder as a topic was immediately into Kurt's hands, and he found himself reading without many stops or breaks. It was all fiction, but somehow, it felt real printed out in pages. He'd not gotten a book about depression yet (he was far too afraid of what that may trigger), but he was reading a book about borderline personality disorder.

He consumed the pages by the hour, and found himself done with the book at one am. Though he had school, it was hard to fall asleep. This week had been a week where sleeping was getting harder, and it had been escalating over time. He didn't want to start another book, so he had just wandered off towards Facebook. It was just an impromptu thought that came to his mind, but he found himself looking up Jean Smythe, and then he landed into a fan-page about the company he owned.

I should have known, Kurt found himself looking through the statuses. Most of them were promotional. Somehow, in the back of his mind, Kurt remembered how they first met. Sebastian was cold, and Kurt gave him a scarf. Sebastian thought that Kurt was attempting to strangle him. The thought of it now made Kurt's stomach drop. This was a boy no older than six or seven that he'd met, and he was too afraid to make a friend because he thought that his friends would murder him. Kurt looked at the page, and then looked through pictures. None of them were anything that were particularly suspicious. He sighed. He was honestly hoping he can get a picture of Sebastian now. He sighed deeply, and just gave in. He could search for Sebastian, but he thought it would be odd to add him as a friend. However, he supposed his courage (or stupidity – he cannot decide which one) decided that he wanted add Sebastian as a friend.

He found him immediately and smiled warmly to himself. "Caught you," he said to particularly no one. His profile picture was a dead giveaway, that narrow, thin face and lovely green eyes. He added Sebastian as a friend, and just hoped he'd accept. Judging by his over 500 friends (which he doubted he knew all of), he realised that he may just get lucky tonight (not that he was referring to anything sexual.)

Dear Gwen,

I found you on Facebook. You look beautiful in your profile picture – what with your stunning smile, gorgeous brown locks, and soft green eyes. I hope that a lot of people tell you you're beautiful though I say that I might just be jealous of that. I might be just jealous of you – but I know your story, and I know what happened to you, how people hurt you and how you little self-esteem you had then. I hope that was a thing of the past. I just really…really beyond anything else—hope that you're safe now.

Love, Honour and Wishes,

Peter Parker.