It's Hard To Be The One Who Stays [Kurtbastian]

Nice to Meet You (Feb, 2021)

Author's Note: I've finished this story! There are 26 chapters, and it will be posted a chapter a day until complete. This is a non-linear story, so please note the time tags in the title!

Credit for the image edit for the cover goes to killthecandylady on Tumblr.

"Come on, have one, they're really good," Kurt says, waving his Cosmopolitan temptingly in front of Sebastian's face.

"You already talked me into it once, and it tastes like fucking fruit juice," Sebastian says, batting Kurt's hand away and reaching for his beer bottle. "Keep your sugar water to yourself."

He wraps his lips around the bottle lip and tips his head back, in a far too calculated way, his eyes never breaking contact with Kurt's. Kurt follow the roll of his throat, licking his lips.

The bottle clinks as Seb throws it back down onto the bar counter. Seb smirks, like he knows exactly what Kurt's thinking.

"Kurt, will you stop staring at your fiancé and focus on what matters!" Rachel's voice slices through the moment. "They're about to start Karaoke Night!"

Kurt groans. "I don't want to. Go sing with your boyfriend, Rachel."

He pushes at Sebastian's legs until they splay wide, and slots neatly into the warm space left for him. Sebastian's hands wrap around him, hot. The air inside the bar is thick and humid, but Kurt feels like a cat rolling around in its owner's blankets.

Rachel pouts. "I sing with Brody all the time! Don't you think they deserve to hear Broadway's new star duet with her best-friend-slash-Broadway-rookie together?"

"I think that'd just be unfair, actually," Kurt says absent-mindedly, ignoring her insult in favor of nuzzling into Seb's neck, and Seb turns his head to let him. God, he loves when Seb is like this. When he has just enough alcohol in him to lose the mocking edge to his public gestures, when he's just loving and pliable. Kurt doesn't want to move anywhere.

They're at a trendy bar in Chelsea. He can tell it'll be one of those lazy nights out, where he'll mock and indulge Rachel while her new ("He's it! Just because he and I don't have Names doesn't mean we can't tell, and this guy's The One—Tell Craiglist over there to stop rolling his eyes at me, Kurt—!") boyfriend Brody looks on with exasperated affection. Eventually, they'll transition to the part of the night where Rachel diva-storms onto the stage, and Seb and he make-out in the back of the bar and on the dance floor, heated and slow, and take it back home to sloppily finish the foreplay.

"Why don't you just wait for Brody's musician elf friend to come, and you can trade one gay side-kick for another?" Sebastian drawls.

"Be nice, Seb! And you don't even know he's gay," Kurt says, giving Seb's hand on his waist a light slap. He already feels bad enough that the case materials got sent to Sebastian's ACLU office later than expected. They arrived at the lounge late enough to have miss about half of Brody's friend's set, even though Brody had gone out of his way to invite them. If that weren't bad enough, they all left before his set was done, because Rachel had insisted on getting to the bar early enough that she could be the first to sign up, and therefore the first to perform.

Sebastian scoffs. "Oh, come on, half my job is reading people. He was clearly gay." He shoots Kurt a wry look. "And it's not nice to chastise your boyfriend just because he said something true about a guy you thought was hot."

"Please." He gives Sebastian an unimpressed look. "So did you."

Seb smirks, no denial.

"And anyway," Kurt continues. "Vertically challenged or no, he had a nice voice."