June 2012

This was it. The final test had been taken. The painfully cliché, but mercifully brief Valedictorian speech had been listened to. And Kurt had finally walked purposefully across that stage to get his high school diploma. He got a firm kiss on the cheek from Carole and a bear hug from his dad and Kurt was finally ready to get out of his graduation robes and leave Mckinley High for good.

He was about to leave for his car when a familiar arm slung around his shoulder, "ready to leave the stench of public school for good, K. Humps," Sebastian said, walking with him back to his car. "You're lucky I'm such a good friend or I wouldn't have been able to struggle through that entire ceremony. It's a good thing you're so pale or I may not have been able to see you in the haze of inferiority. You practically glow."

"Shut it, preppy. We both know you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be," Kurt said laughing a little as they stumbled to his car, lessening the harshness of the insult. "I'm sure everyone in the audience could have managed just fine without Dalton's number one man whore making judge-y faces in the back row."

"Does that make you my partner in crime?" Sebastian asked wiggling his eyebrows as he got into the passenger side of Kurt's Navigator. Kurt didn't bother asking how Sebastian had gotten there without a car in the first place in favor of gagging exaggeratedly.

"I'd literally rather have my V-card back," Kurt said sticking his tongue out and making an immature raspberry noise.

"Yeah, yeah, I know you love me. You don't have to hide it," Kurt just rolled his eyes, letting the banter die for the moment. "So do you have to go to some lame Nude Erections party or are you down for a grad night visit to Scandals?"

Kurt groaned a bit, pulling out of the parking spot and driving away from his high school for hopefully the last time. "I should probably make an appearance at Rachel's. The party will be boring and I think I'll vomit if I have to watch the departing couples weep over their significant others, but they're my friends. Besides you, they're my best friends and I'd like some time with them to celebrate," Kurt's expression softened slightly when he thought about his Glee Club friends. He hated high school, but he would miss those afternoons in the choir room. "Afterwards, though...the party should only go until about eleven. We can find our own fun afterwards. You're welcome to come, but I assume you just want me to meet you at your house after?"

"Got it in one," Sebastian said, hopping out of the car as Kurt had pulled up to his house. "See you later K. Humps," he said, slamming the door behind him.

"I've got to get him to stop calling me that."

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For those who had known Kurt throughout high school, his relationship with Sebastian probably seemed unlikely, at least at first. To them, Kurt was the campy gay kid who was generally fairly quiet, but a little sassy. Sebastian had brought him out of his shell and given him the courage to not just be out, but to be proud of who he was. The people that mattered (the Glee club and his family) had managed to grow used to the pair's constant stream of insults. It was just how they communicated.

What almost no one knew, however, was that in all likelihood Sebastian saved Kurt's life. Being the only out kid in his school had always been hard and it could definitely get Kurt down, but he didn't start seriously dealing with depression until the summer before his junior year. Once school started that semester, things quickly spiraled out of control. The pain and fear of his dad's heart attack combined with the the new fervor of Karofsky's bullying meant that he was nearly at the end of his rope until the fateful day when Puck sent him to spy on the Warblers.

He had managed to run into the A Capella group almost immediately as he heard the sounds of "Uptown Girl" wafting from one of the rooms. Sebastian wasn't the lead singer back then, but his shrewd eye meant that he immediately picked Kurt out as an outsider. It definitely wasn't friendship at first meet, and Kurt most definitely left in a huff after their first conversation when Sebastian wouldn't stop calling him gay face, but after running into each other relentlessly at the Lima Bean they soon became acquaintances and later best friends.

Sebastian managed to pass on his 'see if I care' attitude about homophobes and had opened Kurt's eyes to the only gay establishment in Lima, Scandals. The place itself was sort of seedy and Kurt liked to limit the rendezvous he picked up from there (unlike Sebastian who went home with a different guy every weekend), but he was no longer alone. He no longer felt like the only gay man in Ohio and he finally had someone to confide in. Sebastian and Kurt's relationship was constantly antagonistic and pretty odd for sure, but they were also there for each other. They could both be sassy and abrasive, but were unrivaled in their perceptiveness, especially when it came to each other and both knew when the other needed them to be serious.

People who didn't know them, assumed they were dating, but the idea of that was preposterous to the two of them for two main reason. Kurt was the most steady relationship that Sebastian had and that was mainly due to the fact that they were not and would not ever date. They made out once when they were extremely drunk and Sebastian wanted to get the attention of a guy across the bar. It had worked and he went home with him that night, but Kurt had spent the next 24 hours over dosing on mouthwash and texting Sebastian that he owed him a lifetime supply of mochas. Sebastian never saw the other man again, but he was currently still providing Kurt with the coffee he demanded.

The other reason was that Kurt had unilaterally sworn off relationships in order to focus on his career goals. He was fine with the occasional one night stand, but anything other than that would just be a distraction. Whenever his girl friends would prod him about finding a man he would scoff and quote his Patti LuPone memoir about going it alone to produce effectively as an artist. Kurt didn't need love. He needed success.

They were an odd pair, but they had each other and now Kurt was ready to take on New York by himself. Sebastian would join the next year since he was only a rising senior (something Kurt liked to tease him about endlessly). Kurt was attending Columbia for creative writing, determined that one day a play he penned would be on broadway.