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

Second Crossroads (October, 2013 / February, 2021)

October 2013

Sebastian's birth time comes and goes.

Kurt stays up late, because Sebastian was a late-night baby. He'd sent an early birthday message this morning, but Seb hadn't sent back a response, and Kurt hadn't expected him to.

It's maddening. His phone keeps buzzing, but it's all people checking in on him. Rachel, Santana, Finn, Trent, his dad, David, Sebastian's dad, Mercedes, even fucking Hunter—

He checks every single message and picks up every call, on the slim chance that one of them has an update from Sebastian. But none of them do, and as the night wears on, he becomes increasingly upset and they become increasingly worried, and finally he just puts his phone on silent. Who is he kidding, if Sebastian hasn't told him, then he won't have told anyone yet.

He falls asleep still watching the phone, but knowing deep-down, with a weary expectant sense of disappointment, that a call isn't coming.

Maybe Kurt had heard that distracted quality in Sebastian's voice right, after all. Maybe his green eyes had snagged on someone else in the past couple of weeks and Kurt just hadn't know. Maybe Sebastian was just ready to move on from Kurt and the challenge of their relationship. Maybe it even felt a little bit like a reprieve to Sebastian, watching someone else's Name—a stranger, a classmate, whomever—run across his finger.

Kurt doesn't let himself wonder if it feels a little bit like a reprieve to him too.

He wakes up the next morning with swollen eyes he nurses, and he goes out and parties for the next two nights like it's his first weekend in New York City, and he finally stumbles out of some nightclub at 3 AM in the toned arms of a cute boy in his contemporary dance class and falls straight into Rachel's warm hands. Kurt looks at her face, at her lips pressed thin and her eyes tight around the corners, and wonders why she looks so upset when he—they—are still young and still here, with the lights of New York all around them.

February, 2021

Blaine rushes on. "So, right. I thought we should meet to talk things over. I hear you'd be in the Village? There's a really nice coffee shop, on the corner of 8th and Washington. Do you know that one?"

"Yeah, I know the one," Kurt says again. Sebastian and Kurt went often, when Seb dropped by to pick him up from rehearsal.

"So let's meet there then. At three maybe?"

There's silence.

"Okay," Kurt says, finally

As he's changing out of his sweats, on his way to meet Blaine, he sends Sebastian a text and almost doesn't feel bad about omitting Blaine's name.

Meeting someone. Might be home late. Don't wait up.

Then, half a second later.

I love you.

He waits in the café, his coffee cup shaking in his hands. The cheesecake, meant to settle his stomach, sits on the table, two bites taken out of it.

A/N: Sorry I fell off the bandwagon for a bit. Have some angst!!