Just like promised, the car was fixed and ready to go by noon. Kurt handled the talk while Sebastian just handed over his credit card and put the baggage back in the trunk. Soon the car was standing on the garage's driveway, and they were ready to get going, Sebastian already in the driver seat turning the engine on.
"Hope you and your boyfriend have a safe trip," the mechanic wished and waved just as Kurt opened the door, and he froze in his place.
"He's –– we're not –– " Kurt started, but Sebastian cut him off with:
"Just get in the damn car, Kurt!" and the mechanic chuckled before turning back to his garage.
Kurt was momentarily gobsmacked. Wasn't Sebastian the one who went against a group of freaking bikers as recently as yesterday because they assumed that he and Kurt were boyfriends?And now he just brushed it off, stopping Kurt from correcting the far less intimidating mechanic for making the same mistake. The fuck?!
Choosing to just ignore it, Kurt jumped in the car, and then they were on their way to New York.
They had been on the motorway for about ten minutes when Sebastian suddenly decided to talk.
"Can I ask you something?" he said out of the blue, and Kurt, who had been staring out the window until then, just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Well nothing's gonna stop you from asking, but whether or not I'll answer is a completely different matter," he said, and Sebastian shot him a quick glare, as if to say 'really?'before returning his eyes to the road. Kurt sighed. "Ask away, Sebastian, but I won't answer it if I don't want to."
"Fair enough. Why did you and Blaine break up?"
"What, you want to know why he didn't come asking for sex right after?" Kurt asked defensively.
"Not really, I know that ship sailed long ago. I just thought that you two were a kind of couple who'd always be together until you were married, raised an adopted daughter, and then grow old together and be buried right next to each other after you both died. But even if you two were only having one of those 'off' periods, you seemed so final about it, like there's no way in hell that you're gonna get back together again, so I'm curious."
Kurt hadn't really talked to anyone about just why he and Blaine had broke up; he hadn't wanted to because Rachel would try to make him feel better before plotting plans to get them back together, and Finn, despite being his brother, did actually like Blaine now, and it was terrible. So, Kurt didn't feel like he knew where his brother stood; as for Mercedes, she had become unreachable and just incapable to comprehend Kurt, and he didn't feel safe to open up to her anymore. Puck, despite how much of a friend he had come to be, loved his Klaine, and while he was the one who knew the most about the break up, he still was told next to nothing.
Kurt knew that he had closed himself off, and he did so to protect himself, so he could move on with his life. To be perfectly honest, he was so sick of Lima and all the New Direction drama, and he just had to get out and get going. And that was something that he couldn't have done before.
"I guess we just outgrew each other," Kurt said and immediately realised that Sebastian had probably thought that he wouldn't answer. Hell, Kurt didn't know why he was answering when he hadn't done it for anyone else. Perhaps, it was because Sebastian sort of maintained neutrality, more so than anyone else Kurt knew –– which was rather weird considering their history, but for whatever reason, Kurt actually wanted to give him a proper answer. Maybe it had something to do with the way he had asked or how he had said that no, he wasn't interested in Blaine anymore, or because Kurt overheard him talking to his mother or whatever, but... "If I had to pinpoint a specific time period, I guess that would be him starting to close himself off when he realised that I was going to New York. From there on, it just silently grew, and all the sudden I found us so far away from each other that I couldn't even talk to him. So yeah, I knew that I couldn't have a relationship like that."
"So, I had nothing to do with it?" Sebastian asked, and Kurt couldn't help but to laugh a little.
"No, quite the opposite, in fact. You see, you were threatening to take away what was mine which made me rather protective, as you might have noticed, and that was before the New York-factor really had hit him anyway, but I guess it was coming. Besides, you're the reason why we had sex when we did which I would say made us become closer..."
"What?!" Sebastian demanded, the shock on his face almost ridiculously funny. "How the hell could you say I was responsible for that."
"You and Arty made my boyfriend suddenly aware that sex could be nice because when I had talked to him about it before you two met, he was all 'that's why you have masturbation.' But all the sudden, he wanted to have sex with me in the back of my damn car after that night at Scandals and was sort of drunkenly mad when I refused. But then again, Blaine does become horny when he's drunk; the fact that he kissed Rachel about a year before and then thought that he was bisexual would be proof enough."
"Wait, Blaine kissed Berry?"
"It was spin the bottle in Rachel's cellar. It was just at the beginning of our friendship: they were both drunk for the first time, but then Rachel kissed him again when they were both sober, and he realised that no, he was gay, and thanked Rachel for helping him figure that out."
"Oh my God, he thanked her?" Sebastian laughed.
"Yepp, pity I was too much in love to tease him about it."
"Oh I know I will next time I see him."
"Please don't, he'll probably figure out that I told you because God knows that Rachel wouldn't."
"I won't make any promises," Sebastian said with a mischievous look in his eyes. "But don't you miss him?" he then asked, suddenly serious again.
"Yes and no? I don't know, I guess I miss being in a relationship, and I miss being in love with someone because I've sort of always had a crush on someone since I was a freshman, and now I have nothing. And I do miss him for some part. I miss the friend I had in him, and sometimes I just catch myself wanting to text him about something ridiculous Puck said or to rant about how Finchel is getting on my nerves. But at the same time, I want to move on, and perhaps I'll find a friend in him again someday hopefully."
"But you don't want to get married to him anymore?" Sebastian asked half jokingly, half seriously.
"No, but I still want him at my wedding. Am I making any sense?"
"I think so."
"Can I ask you something then?" Kurt asked suddenly because he sort of wanted to know something personal about Sebastian now that Sebastian knew something so personal about Kurt as his first serious relationship.
"Sure, but if I'll answer is a completely different matter," Sebastian replied with a smirk, throwing Kurt's own words up his face.
"Jerk," Kurt said simply, and Sebastian chuckled. "But seriously, did you live in France or something because you speak it really well, and I remember Blaine saying something about you and Paris some time ago."
It was rather odd because Sebastian, who had been rather, well not relaxed, but sort of easy when talking about Kurt and Blaine, suddenly tensed in a way Kurt had never seen before, and he hadn't even noticed that Sebastian had opened up until now that he had closed off.
"You really don't have to answer if you don't want to," Kurt added softly because he realised that he didn't want Sebastian to go back to his offensive, jerk-face, goddamn annoying default mood.
"No, it's just that –– " Sebastian broke off, and Kurt waited, giving him time. "I was born in the US and lived here for my first couple of years, but I don't remember anything of course. Then Maman and Dad decided to move to Paris where Maman came from, so that's where I really grew up. Dad was still a lawyer, and he worked a bit internationally and often travelled to the States for business, and everyone in my father's family lives here anyway, so sure, I spent many summers and Christmases here. And dad was really active in law and politics in Ohio and really good at what he did, so about a year ago he was approached by a rich lobbyist to run for a state attorney general's seat and Maman convinced him that he should try, so well, we moved here, so he could prove his devotion, and because he was brilliant he obviously won."
"You don't sound too happy about it," Kurt said.
"Well, how do you think I felt?" Sebastian snapped, his hands gripping hard around the steering wheel and his eyes glaring ahead. "No place in this damn country can measure up to Paris; I had to leave all my friends and have fucking Facebook telling me about all the things I'm missing, and not to mention that I hate American cuisine."
It was most definitely the wrong thing to do at the time, but Kurt snickered, snickered. And Sebastian noticed and send him a furious look before turning cold and looking at the road again.
"Sorry, sorry," Kurt said, beginning to explain himself. "It's just that you had to mention food because come on, it's hilarious. Especially since the French eat snails and frog legs and stuff like that."
"I'll have you know that frog legs are awesome while deep-fried just-about-anything-you-can-imagine is not. And French cuisine has a lot more to offer than just snails and frog legs, t'es qu'un idiot d'Americain."
"Pour ta gouverne, je te rappelle que tu es aussi Americain, imbécile," Kurt shot back, and Sebastian fell of his track completely for a second, looking at Kurt with wide eyes.
"You speak French?" he almost faltered, and Kurt gave him a smirk of his own.
"I guess you could say that."
"I thought you went to a public school," Sebastian said, and Kurt couldn't help but to snort.
"You're such a preppy," Kurt responded. "If you want to learn something, you always find a way to do it. And a couple of months of Dalton's Advanced French class may or may not have helped," he added.
"Wait what? You've gone to Dalton?" Sebastian seemed completely taken by surprise by this information and sort of gave him a half-arsed shrug in return.
"It feel like forever ago, but yes, I did for a while. I, er, had some problems at McKinley, and Blaine helped me get into Dalton, and I went there for about four months before Santana managed to persuade me into coming back to McKinley. But yeah."
"Wow. I would want to see you in one of those blazers."
"But you won't," Kurt deadpanned. "I had to wear the same outfit for far too long, and I'm notdoing it again."
Sebastian shot him a fond glance. "Of course you'd say that."
"Yes, of course I would, I mean you've been there, and the sea of blazers becomes too much after about two minutes, and then you feel like you're drowning in the crowd, and almost everyone has the same look and hairstyle, and it just suffocates any attempt at individuality."
"Jeez, had this conversation before, have you?" Sebastian said with a chuckle.
"Maybe. What I don't understand is why you seem so surprised about it though. I mean, it is me we're talking about."
"You're right, but almost everything you've done during this crazy trip has taken me by surprise, starting with still inexplicable knowledge of cars to pushing me off a goddamn bed."
"I'm never gonna get away with that one, am I?"
"While I don't fancy telling people that we shared a bed, I am so not letting you forget it, no."
It sounded oddly enough as a promise.
"... t'es qu'un idiot d'Americain." - "... you stupid American."
"Pour ta gouverne, je te rappelle que tu es aussi Americain, imbécile," - "For your information, you're American too, smartarse."