"Why? Did you forget something mean you wanted to add to that last zinger?"
"No, actually I want to apologize."
"Fine, sure, whatever. Come in." He sat up and leaned against the wall.
"Look, I don't know why I said that. Wait, that's not true. I know why I said it. It's because my default setting with you is 'lash out verbally' and that's just what comes automatically. And what that says to me is that I didn't actually forgive you when you apologized. I just put you out of my mind. You mentioned it all being fun and games until it wasn't. I'm there now. This isn't fun. I'm not… this isn't me. We're not fighting for the same guy, and it turns out that we never were. I'm sorry for what I said. You've been nothing but helpful all day. That comment I made earlier about you having to be a 'real boy', I need to take that to heart. You aren't just some 2-dimensional high school villain. You're a real person, who, if you are normally like you have been today, is actually a really nice guy - the kind of guy I'd actually like to be friends with."
"Thank you." Sebastian said very quietly. It was barely louder than a whisper.
Kurt went and sat down next to him. "I was out of line earlier, too. If I remember right, you pointed out that two people can fit in my bed. Let's go put the bed frame together and get the bed made. That way we can actually get some sleep. I know you have furniture being delivered tomorrow and I have to work. I don't even know how to get to the diner from here, so I have that left to figure out tomorrow too."
"Oh, so that's what this is about?" Sebastian teased. "You just want a place to sleep."
"I'll be in the other room putting the bed frame together whether you help or not. But you're still welcome to sleep in the bed with me instead of on the wood floor using your new towels as your pillow." Kurt closed the door behind him as he left. This is exhausting. He sighed and went back into his room and started on the assembly.
Sebastian walked into the room soon afterwards. "So you aren't afraid of catching my collection of STDs after all?"
His voice was more teasing than upset, so Kurt considered it a success. It didn't change the fact that he still felt bad for making that comment. "I'm really sorry, Sebastian. I'm not sure that I have it in me to be completely nice today, but I can at least rein it in to the point where I'm civil. It's been a long day and tomorrow will be just as long. When the girls get back and see that my stuff is gone, they will be mad, if for nothing more than the inconvenience of losing things they were used to using. I don't know what to think. They treat me… anyway, they both bought tickets to Ohio at the last minute to come be a part of what they probably considered to be a fairy tale proposal." He stopped talking and focused on what he was doing.
"Do you think your friends know that you called it off?"
"They all knew we had broken up last October. Santana and Rachel definitely know that I've been casually dating a guy named Adam that goes to NYADA with me. And by casual, I mean really casual. We mostly just hang out for short periods of time whenever I can manage to get more than an hour free. But I did ask him out, so we're in this limbo area where we're friends, but are we ever going to be more than friends? I just don't know the answer to that. I told him that I desperately wanted to be over Blaine, and I do. But it's not just as easy as saying it. Anyway, he's from England and I don't even know if he's staying here after graduation."
Sebastian's heart sunk. Kurt already had another guy he liked. An older, British guy. "Th- That's good. I'm glad you realize that Blaine's not your only option."
"I don't think I can talk about that right now. I'm trying to focus on today and tomorrow."
"Right. Sorry."
Before Kurt could say anything, he remembered that he hadn't turned his phone back on or let his dad know that he had arrived safely. He hopped up and powered his phone on, sent the text, and set it to silent. He didn't look intentionally, but the 82 was pretty hard to miss on his missed texts. He got back down on the floor. "I forgot to tell my dad that we made it safely."
"I haven't even told my parents that I'm in here. They think I'm still arriving tomorrow morning."
"I just realized that you were asking whether or not they know that I called the engagement off. That didn't register. I answered whether or not they knew I had called it off with him last fall. I just answered the wrong question. I would assume that they do know by now. It's around 10:30, so there's been plenty of time for the story to have made it through the gossip chain, but since my dad forbade Blaine from trying to contact me, there is also the chance that Blaine is laying low and that he didn't tell anyone. On the other hand, Sam is Blaine's best friend and he lives with my parents, so there's a good chance that he knows by now."
He used the little hex bolt tool and kept working in silence for a while.
"This is just such a mess. Things have been insane at the loft, so I need some place to re-find my sanity, but the girls don't know how unhappy I was because I was just trying to keep them from killing each other a lot of the time. When you're busy playing referee, there's not much time to share your own feelings. They're both going to be hurt that I moved out. They dropped their lives and went to Dalton today to do something they thought was nice. Unless Blaine paid for their tickets, which is super unlikely, they paid themselves. They clearly looked happy for me and Santana rarely does anything that isn't self-serving. She's going to be mad as hell that she spent her hard-earned money on a plane ticket to be there for me, only to come home to find out that I left. This is like every day of my life. You wonder how you get yourself into the position where you say 'yes' to a proposal you don't want? This is how. You have so many self-serving people in your life that you try to keep happy, just so they don't get mad at you, that in the end, instead of being a college student with your own dreams, you just turn into a plate spinner running up and down the row continually keeping the other people's plates to keep them from falling until you're so worn out that you can't move anymore and all of the plates fall and crash. That's where I am now."
"All of those people depending on you to keep their plates spinning are wrong, you know? Whether or not you've been able to act on that knowledge, I just want to know whether you do actually realize that it's their own responsibility to spin their own damn plates."
Kurt looked up at him incredulously. "Besides my counselor at school, you're the first person to ever say that to me. He says I take on responsibility that isn't mine. He says that it's not my job to try to keep my friends from floundering in their own mistakes. He actually says a lot of things that make sense that I just haven't been able to apply to my life. Living with no privacy is hard and living in those conditions with a snoop like Santana is even harder. I think that no matter how things work out between me and the girls, I will be able to put into practice what the counselor is trying to teach me by living here without the constant pressure and lack of privacy."
"What time do you work tomorrow?"
"From 11 until 8. I'll be back by 8:30, I'd imagine. I have a History of Theatre paper to finish when I get back. I'll just eat at the diner. I have a shopping list. I'll add actually doing the shopping to my schedule somewhere."
"My parents have a car here. I was planning to go get some food after the furniture and appliances have been delivered. I can get whatever you need while I'm there, if you leave me some money. Or you can pay me after you get home. Whatever works. I know that moving cut into your study time this weekend."
Kurt wasn't fond of accepting help from anyone, but he was trying not to reject everything Sebastian was offering. He was trying hard to be decent or he just was decent. Kurt hadn't decided just yet. Sebastian was right, he really could use some more time.
"Thank you." Kurt gave Sebastian a small nod. "I'll text you a list and pay you after."He figured he could give him a basic list, and then hold off on going shopping until later in the week for the more complicated items.
Sebastian was surprised that Kurt agreed. "That works."
Kurt tightened up the last hex bolt on the section they were working on. They moved and started on the next part. Sebastian's mind went back to trying to put all of the pieces he had floating around in his mind together in some way that made sense.
"Earlier you said that Dave's attempt was more your fault and not mine at all. What did you mean by that? You two weren't even friends. How could it have been your fault in any way?"
Kurt sighed. "It's not a very pleasant story."
"I figured not, but I can't make any of this make any sense. There's obviously something or more than one piece of information that I don't have."
"He asked me out." Kurt blurted out. "He asked me out on Valentine's Day. I said no and turned him down."
"So? What does that have to do with.. you know?"
"There was a jock from his school at Breadstix and he saw us together talking on Valentine's Day and made assumptions because of my gay face." Kurt said with anger-laced words.
Sebastian figured that he wasn't done and sat quietly, waiting for Kurt to continue.
"The guy went and told the rest of the jocks that we were on a date and that Dave was gay. When he went to school the next day, the jocks had painted 'fag' on his locker in the locker room. They attacked him viciously on his Facebook page. When he didn't succeed, they told him to try again. I found some of this stuff out when I went to visit him in the hospital."
"I still don't see how that's your fault. You were just there."
"That day at Breadstix, I told him that I was still dating Blaine, but that I wanted to be friends with him. He called nine times between the day after we talked and the day he…" Kurt wiped his eyes. "I ignored all of his calls. I offered him friendship, and then I didn't keep my end of the deal. If I had answered just one of those calls, he wouldn't have been so alone and he wouldn't have…"
Sebastian held his hand up to Kurt's cheek to wipe one of the tears.
Kurt leaned into his touch. No one had ever understood how much guilt Kurt carried around over Dave's attempt. "I could never figure out why Dave thought I was single, but he made Valentine's Day really confusing. I thought he hated me, but then he was kind after he joined the Bully Whips, but Santana had him under her thumb, so I could never tell if the kindness was real, but it seemed genuine. And then he sent a week's worth of Secret Admirer gifts, which I, of course, thought were from Blaine. When I found out that they weren't, it was very confusing. I didn't know what to say or do. Here was a guy that I thought hated me who had given me a week's worth of gifts, asking me out in public when he wasn't even out. That was incredibly brave, or dumb. But that was a lot to risk for me. I didn't feel like I could just ignore him, so I said we could be friends, and then I didn't keep my word. I'm not usually like that. The whole situation was just so hard. I didn't know how to be friends with someone I didn't think I had anything in common with who had bullied me for so many years. But I shouldn't have offered if I wasn't going to follow through."
Sebastian didn't know what to say. He wasn't really good at comforting people, especially not Kurt since he seemed to annoy him so much of the time.
"Come on." Sebastian said, as he stood up. " We still need something to sleep on tonight."
Kurt sniffled and began to stand up as well. Sebastian offered him a hand and he gratefully accepted it. He leaned the headboard against his mattress and Sebastian held the foot board up and Kurt fastened the side rails on. Once he did the same thing on the other side, they unrolled the support slats.
"Let's move the mattress because the head of the bed is going on the wall it's leaning against." Kurt was still fighting tears from the myriad of emotions flowing through him.
Once it was in place, they took the plastic off the mattress and put it on the frame. Kurt opened the box with the bed linens. Sebastian was still stuck on Dave. Kurt was still leaving something out.
"Earth to Sebastian."
"What?"
"The mattress pad. Pull it over the edge on your side."
"Right." Sebastian began to get the pieces to the puzzle in place in his mind so that the image began to make sense. Dave liked Kurt. Dave thought Kurt was single. Dave had somehow come out to Kurt before. The death threat. It was from Dave. He threatened to kill Kurt if he told anyone that he was gay. "The death threat was from Dave, wasn't it?" He blurted out.
Kurt wasn't really paying attention to Sebastian as he was making the bed. "Hm?"
"Dave threatened to kill you, didn't he?" Sebastian repeated, his voice more steady and clear now.
Kurt paled. "What makes you think that?" he asked, after clearing his throat.
"He bullied you. You were one of the only people he came out to. Or you somehow figured it out yourself. He was afraid you were going to out him."
"Actually, he threatened to kill me because we nearly outed him. Fine, I'll tell you the whole story, but if you ever repeat this to anyone, I'll never speak to you again." He told him everything that had happened, starting with when he went to spy on the Warblers until the day he enrolled at Dalton. From there he skipped to when Santana conscripted Dave into being in the Bully Whips and he went back to McKinley. And then for extra drama, he told him about Junior Prom.
So Kurt wouldn't feel like he was staring at him, Sebastian started flattening all of the boxes that had been emptied.
"Fuck, Kurt." Sebastian said, after Kurt finally stopped speaking. "I had no idea."
"I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to ruin your image of Dave." Kurt bit his lip. "He really has changed since then."
"I can't believe you're defending him." he shook his head in disbelief.
"I'm giving you a chance, aren't I? If I never gave people who had been mean to me a chance to grow up and stop being jackasses, what kind of person would that make me?"
"It's different." Sebastian argued. "What he did is way worse." Sebastian stopped arguing long enough to think about what Kurt had just said. Everyone in his life was someone who had been mean to him at some point in time from what Sebastian could tell. "Do you have any friends who have never been mean to you?"
"Adam."
"Ah, yes of course." Sebastian said bitterly. He wasn't sure what he was upset about anymore.
"He's a really nice guy. The nicest person I've ever met." Kurt continued, not catching onto Sebastian's tone. "I really hope he wants to continue our friendship. I like him a lot and I want to be a better friend to him. I haven't exactly treated him like I wanted to these past few weeks.
"Didn't you say that you don't have time for him?"
"I don't. But don't I deserve a friend? But to have one, I'm going to have to be one. I have to figure out how to make time or just walk away. I can't just string people along."
"Of course you do. Deserve a friend I mean." he paused. "I could be a friend too." he added hesitantly. He was super jealous of the idea that Kurt might like Adam as more than a friend, but he had to keep his opinions on that to himself because Kurt really did deserve a decent friend.
"Maybe. If you behave." Kurt teased.
"No problem. I'd say I have been behaving today."
"I will never forgive you that pink Lexus comment."
"It was hilarious - and necessary!" Sebastian protested. "I ran out of options."
"Fine, it was a little funny, but seriously, if you're buying me a Lexus, I'd prefer black. It's timeless and elegant."
"I'll keep that in mind." He rolled his eyes. He picked up the stack of flattened boxes and slid them under Kurt's bed. "We can figure out what to do with those later. I'm beat."
Kurt raised an eyebrow. "It's 11:30. Not really how I imagined Sebastian Smythe's Saturday night."
"Well, I am spending the night in this hot guy's bed. Seems like a good Saturday night to me," he teased back.
"Good answer. I'll allow you to sleep now."
"Thank you, oh benevolent owner of the bed."
"After you shower…"
"Yeah. About that. Water isn't a problem, but I have no bathroom items with me since I had planned to arrive tomorrow morning and go shopping after I got here."
"Oh, right. I didn't empty my bathroom boxes yet. I'll go do that. You can use my shampoo and body wash. I have a new toothbrush you can have too. I bought a 3-pack the last time."
"Thanks."
Kurt picked up one of the boxes and Sebastian grabbed the other.
They started putting Kurt's stuff out on the counter. One item in particular got Sebastian's attention.
"Coconut, seriously?" he smirked and held up the bottle of body wash.
"Yeah. Maybe it will mask the Craigslist smell."
"Very funny. What does Craigslist smell like anyway?"
"Eau de desespoir."
Sebastian cackled. "Perfect. Wait. Earlier in the taxi, you understood me when I was speaking French."
"Damn. You're fast."
"Only if you want me to be…"
Kurt sighed. "I thought we were past this."
"Past innuendo? What fun would that be?"
Kurt didn't answer his question. "I'm going to shower." He grabbed all the stuff he needed, including the body wash that Sebastian was still holding, hoping he would take the hint.
Sebastian didn't move.
"I said I was going to shower."
"Go on then."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "Sebastian, move please. I can't shower with you standing there."
"Would you rather me join you? I'm great at shower massages," he teased. "After moving all of the furniture, I'm sure you could use a good massage."
"I'd rather you move so I can go get my pajamas. If I need a massage, I'll have to stuff it into my schedule somewhere on Monday, but thanks for the offer."
"Your loss."
"I'm sure. Now, if you'll please excuse me. I need to go get my pajamas."
Sebastian stepped out of the way.
"Thanks." Kurt grabbed a set of pajamas. On the way back into the bathroom, he said, "You can use my towels too. I know yours need washed first."
Sebastian sniffed and looked confused. "What do I smell?"
"Oh, I started cinnamon raisin bread earlier. You can have some for breakfast." He closed the bathroom door.
Sebastian went into the kitchen. He sat down in one of the chairs and tipped his head back. He had so many thoughts swirling around in his mind that he couldn't think clearly. He forced himself to drown it all out by counting backwards from ten. He took several deep breaths. He got up and went back to his room, grabbed a notebook from his backpack, and started to make a shopping list.
When Kurt went into his room, Sebastian took his turn in the bathroom.
Kurt put his dirty clothes in the hamper in his closet and picked up his phone. He sat down at his desk and called Adam. He apologized for calling so late and gave him a brief overview of what had happened. He didn't know what to expect, but he didn't want to leave it untold.
"So, just like that, he pulled together four bloody show choirs and a marching band and proposed to you?"
"Yes. And I said 'yes' and then an hour later said 'no'. I didn't want to be engaged to him, but how do you say 'no' in front of so many people?"
Adam finally realized the extent of Kurt's ex's hold on him. Kurt had someone to help to break free. Sebastian had just become Adam's favorite friend of Kurt's. "So, can you give me the address where you are now?"
"Not until Sebastian gets out of the shower. I'll text it to you when I find out, probably not until morning. I have to work a double shift at the diner tomorrow, starting at 11. I'm exhausted. I'm going to go to sleep now."
"You do that. Sweet dreams, Kurt. Hopefully, I'll see you soon."
"I'd like that," he said before he disconnected. He plugged his phone in and got in bed. A few minutes later, Sebastian knocked gently.
"Come on in," Kurt said. "Can you just leave the light on in the bathroom and mostly close the door? We're both sleeping someplace new, and I'd rather not walk into something if I need to get up during the night."
"Yeah, sure." He stepped back out and came back wearing boxer briefs and a t-shirt.
"You're not wearing pajamas," Kurt said very seriously.
"I didn't bring any. I thought I'd be sleeping in the flat alone. I was trying to pack light."
"Yeah, that's not going to work for me. Go back to your room or something. I'll get you a pair of pajama pants." Kurt got up and pulled a pair out and put it on the bathroom counter. "They're in the bathroom." He called out as he got back in bed.
"Better?" Sebastian asked when he came back.
"Much."