Chapter Text
Like castles in the sand
Here and gone again
The walls keep crumbling
Here and gone again
I keep chasing ever after
I keep falling into patterns
Turning love into a hazard
What a beautiful, beautiful disaster
Beautiful Disaster - Chord Overstreet
Their breakup had been… well, messy wasn’t quite the right word. On Blaine’s end, it definitely was. He spent weeks where he only left the house for work and then immediately returned to his bed. Kurt usually crawled in with him when he got home, offering him a shoulder to cry on before eventually forcing Blaine out of bed to eat dinner.
Santana did a lot of cooking for them around that time. She still had a key to their apartment, so she let herself in most nights to cook and then left without even saying hi. Blaine knew she didn’t do comfort well. But she did her best.
They’d been together since high school, and everyone had told him Sebastian was bad news. But he couldn’t help the pull he felt towards him from the moment they first met. Their eyes had locked and something in him just clicked into place. Like, oh, you’re here. Finally.
And it was good in high school. Sebastian was crass, but he hyped Blaine up like no one else. He looked at Blaine like he hung the moon and the stars and Blaine looked at him the same way. And the second he found out Blaine was a virgin he completely backed off until Blaine was ready, and when they did have sex for the first time he was the most patient and kind partner Blaine could have hoped for. He reassured Blaine when he thought he was messing it up, and always checked in to make sure he was still okay. It was as close to a fairytale first time as Blaine could expect to happen on a twin-sized bed in his dorm room.
But Sebastian’s home life wasn’t great. His relationship with his father was strained, and Blaine knew that his parents barely talked to each other and usually communicated through Sebastian. And when Sebastian was struggling, he had a tendency to pull away. To seclude himself from everyone, including Blaine, until he felt he could come back out with his typical smirk firmly in place.
And in high school, when the problems were usually caused by outside forces, Blaine could accept that. But as they got older…
They lived together for their first two years of college. And it was usually good. But when things weren’t, Sebastian would disappear for days on end, leaving Blaine frantic. He wouldn’t pick up his phone, none of their friends could get ahold of him, and it always left Blaine feeling so helpless. He never knew what was wrong, if it was something he did, or something else. And Sebastian would rarely speak about what had happened after he came back.
When Sebastian disappeared for two whole weeks, Blaine moved out. He couldn’t do it anymore. He just couldn’t handle not knowing if his boyfriend was ever going to come back. So he moved into the bonus room in Kurt and Santana’s apartment and waited for Sebastian to call him.
It took another two weeks for the call to come, and Blaine didn’t know if Sebastian had stayed gone for that long, or if he had been waiting for Blaine to come back. It was the only time Blaine had ever heard Sebastian cry. He was panicked and rambling out apologies and begging Blaine to come back.
Blaine told him no.
He couldn’t sit around their apartment all alone when Sebastian needed space. He couldn’t pace around wondering when or if he was coming back. He was going to stay with Kurt and Santana. So when Sebastian needed his space, Blaine could at least imagine he was safe in his own apartment, and Blaine had a support system.
They made that work for another few years. Things were easier when Blaine didn’t have to know if Sebastian was isolating or just busy. And it felt like Sebastian was isolating less. He’d cut off all contact with his father. He was graduating from college having already been accepted into a master’s program. Blaine spent most nights at Sebastian’s apartment, half of his stuff lived there again. He was actually considering moving back in.
But then Sebastian’s father died. And Sebastian disappeared for over two months. And Blaine didn’t even know why.
He found out a few months after they broke up. He felt really guilty for leaving Sebastian when he was dealing with the complicated grief over losing a distant and oftentimes abusive father. But there was no way he could have known at the time. Sebastian didn’t tell him.
He’d blocked Sebastian’s phone number in the aftermath. He unblocked it when the news of his father’s death finally made it to him. He apologized and gave his condolences and told Sebastian he would be there if he wanted to talk.
Sebastian never responded. So Blaine blocked his number again a few months later. He didn’t need the temptation
The first time they ran into each other afterward, Blaine didn’t know what to expect. Six years of a relationship and then six months of silence. It was in the club, where it usually was. The same club they’d always gone to together. The same club Blaine knew he should avoid.
But he saw him across the room and he didn’t even think before he approached him. Neither of them spoke, they just danced. But then dancing led to kissing which led to Sebastian fucking him in the back seat of his car.
Blaine unblocked his number again afterward, but Sebastian never contacted him.
But it kept happening. They’d end up at the club again, and they’d see each other across the room, and then they’d have sex in the bathroom, the car, the alley. They never took it to either of their places. Sebastian still lived in the same apartment and Blaine couldn’t risk Kurt seeing them together.
They didn’t talk about it. They didn’t talk at all aside from the normal platitudes exchanged during sex. A series of Oh gods and fucks and harders .
The secret didn’t last forever, though. Santana’s latest fling saw them exiting the bathroom together, faces flushed, hair mussed, and sent a cheeky Snapchat to Santana and Kurt. She didn’t know who Sebastian was. She didn’t know the chaos she had just unleashed on Blaine.
The intervention was swift. They gathered all of their friends and gave Blaine all of the reasons why he and Sebastian weren’t good together. Why he needed to stop whatever they were doing before he got seriously hurt. Before he ended up hurting Sebastian without ever knowing it.
He avoided the club for a few weeks. But there was an itch under his skin that was driving him up the wall, so when Kurt had to leave for the weekend for a family emergency, Blaine caved.
He called Sebastian.
And he came over.
And then again the next night.
And the night after.
That third night left them exhausted and Sebastian fell asleep before they thought better of it. Blaine misjudged when Kurt would come back, and he also didn’t think about how they had both gotten in the habit of crawling into bed with each other when they were having a rough time.
He didn’t hear the bedroom door open. But Sebastian did.
“Good morning, Hummel,” Sebastian said, a sleepy smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Blaine sat bolt upright, panicked eyes meeting Kurt’s. It didn’t help that they were both still naked, and the sheet that fell across their laps did little to hide that. He didn’t know what to say, what to do. And then Sebastian leaned over and kissed his shoulder and wrapped an arm around his waist, and his panic eased.
“Blaine,” Kurt said, face pinched, “can we talk in the hall for a minute?”
Sebastian felt the way Blaine’s heart rate increased and pulled him closer into his side. “Actually, we’re a little busy right now, Kurt,” he said, his eyes daring Kurt to object. He mouthed at Blaine’s neck and Blaine simply gaped like a fish.
Kurt left with a huff.
Sebastian stopped.
He moved away from Blaine and stood as he rounded up his clothes.
“Seb,” Blaine said softly.
Sebastian paused while buttoning up his pants, but didn’t turn.
“Seb,” Blaine repeated, “come back to bed.”
Sebastian took a deep breath. “I don’t think Kurt would like that.”
“Since when do you care what Kurt thinks? Especially now?”
“I just wanted to give you a moment to think before he went off on you. We both know you shouldn’t be doing this.”
Blaine swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached out for Sebastian. Sebastian let himself be pulled back to sit beside Blaine. “But you should be?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes. “I’m the one who makes the bad decisions in this relationship, you’re supposed to be the reasonable one. You should know that what we’re doing isn’t good for you.”
“But it’s good for you?”
Sebastian scrubbed his hand over his face. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not good for you, so you should really put an end to this.”
Blaine cocked his head. “If you believe that, why haven’t you put an end to it? Why do you keep going back to the same club if you don’t want this to happen? Why did you pick up the phone?”
Sebastian stood and put his arms through the sleeves of his shirt but left it hanging open. He walked to the door and Blaine thought he was going to leave without another word, but he paused with his hand on the doorknob. Sebastian thunked his head against the door and groaned.
And then he turned, and he straddled Blaine’s lap, and he kissed him like he needed Blaine as much as he needed food, or water, or air. Every fiber of his being seemed to be poured into that kiss and all Blaine could do was hold him close and accept it. When Sebastian finally pulled away, his eyes were wet.
“This should really be goodbye,” he whispered against Blaine’s lips.
“And if I don’t want it to be?” Blaine asked.
Sebastian shook his head. He kissed Blaine one last time, and then he left.
—
Blaine managed to stay away for a month that time. He went to different clubs. He let Kurt hook him up on some bad first dates. Let Santana hook him up on some even worse one-night stands. And he really thought he was finally over Sebastian.
It was the only time since this had started happening that Blaine didn’t actually see Sebastian first. He was at a club that wasn’t theirs and he knew he’d had a little too much to drink. He was just so stressed from work and he needed to let go and he’d deleted Sebastian’s number so he couldn’t be tempted and he was really regretting that decision because all he wanted to do was have him fuck his brains out so he could just stop thinking.
And then there was Ben who kept buying Blaine drinks and he knew he should have stopped half a dozen shots ago but his brain was muddled and he couldn’t even think straight and suddenly Ben had him pressed against a wall by the bathroom, his mouth sucking greedily on Blaine’s neck as he guided Blaine’s hand inside his pants–
And then there was Sebastian. Dragging him away. Shoving him towards a bouncer. And then he was back. And he cupped Blaine’s cheek and tried to speak to him. But Blaine couldn’t understand what he was saying and his vision was so hazy, he just wanted to go to sleep.
So Sebastian took him home.
He tried to sleep on the couch. But Blaine clung to his arm and dragged him back into the bed. Blaine didn’t know if he was begging verbally as well, but Sebastian relinquished. He kicked his shoes off and let Blaine pull him in. Blaine kissed him desperately and Sebastian let him. But the second Blaine reached for the button of his jeans Sebastian pulled his hands away.
“You’re too drunk, baby,” he whispered and Blaine could finally hear him past the rushing in his ears.
“It’s okay,” Blaine tried to plead.
“It’s really not,” Sebastian said.
“But it’s you .”
Sebastian’s brow was furrowed as he studied Blaine’s face. “Ask again tomorrow, okay? When you’re sober enough to remember it.”
—
Blaine did ask. Once he was cognizant enough and Sebastian had made him a big enough and greasy enough breakfast to ease his headache. Sebastian shook his head with a smile. But he did take Blaine to bed.
And afterward, when Sebastian was in the shower, Blaine stole his phone and texted himself. Blaine was just grateful he still used the same pin he had since high school.
—
Kurt and Blaine came to a silent understanding. Blaine wasn't going to stop seeing Sebastian. No matter how hard Kurt tried to convince him, it just wasn't going to happen.
So they agreed that Kurt would stop trying to intervene and in exchange, he didn't have to pretend to be polite to Sebastian.
Though that wasn't all that much of a change. It had been difficult to tell if Kurt and Sebastian were actually friends or just bitter rivals who put up with each other for Blaine. But their verbal sparring matches certainly took on a new level of viciousness.
He tried not to make a habit of Sebastian spending the night at his place. But he also rarely had the courage to step through the entryway of his and Sebastian’s old apartment. He usually only allowed Sebastian to kiss him silly with his back pressed against the front door before he left him for the night. So, more often than not, when they wanted privacy, Blaine’s place it was.
And on the rare night that Sebastian didn’t leave shortly after the deed was one, he was guaranteed to wake up to him and Kurt bickering in the kitchen the next morning. But Sebastian was sweet in the morning. He was usually in the kitchen cooking Blaine breakfast when Kurt found him, and even as they started fighting, Sebastian would pour Kurt a cup of coffee and hand it to him. Blaine knew Sebastian thought of his fights with Kurt as a game. Blaine was never quite sure if Kurt thought the same.
—
Blaine found out about the boyfriend by accident.
Sebastian was in the shower, and he’d left his phone on the bed like he usually did. And then it started ringing. And ringing. And ringing. The fifth time Jeremy called, he finally picked up.
“Sebastian Smythe’s phone, he’s unavailable at the moment, can I take a message for you?”
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?” Blaine asked, pulling the phone away from his ear to check that the call actually connected. He could still see the numbers slowly counting up and Jeremy’s name was still large and bright at the top of the screen.
He put the phone back to his ear just in time to hear a shaky breath and then the call disconnected. Blaine stared at the phone in his hand for a long moment, not sure what to make of the situation until Sebastian finally exited the bathroom.
Blaine looked up at him, his brown creased and his lips pursed. “Bas… who’s Jeremy?”
Sebastian’s face fell and Blaine could see his walls rising as he began to shut Blaine out.
“No,” Blaine said firmly, “you are not going to do that to me right now. Who. Is. Jeremy?”
Sebastian looked away and flexed his jaw. “My boyfriend,” he said.
Blaine felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Even though he saw it coming he still reeled back. Sebastian’s jaw was set, he wouldn’t meet Blaine’s eye. “How long?”
Sebastian folded his arms over his chest. “Six months.”
Blaine ran a shaking hand through his hair. Two years of this and he thought they were on the same page. Two years and he thought he fully understood exactly where they stood. Two years… and he thought maybe they’d end up together at the end of it.
Blaine stood and gathered his clothes. Sebastian let him.
—
Blaine didn’t tell Kurt.
He didn’t tell anyone.
Until Santana plied him with tequila and he ended up on her and Brittany’s living room floor spilling his guts to her.
“I just can’t–” Blaine hiccupped, “--I just can’t believe he though–thought. That I’d be okay with… that . Being the other man. Like some, some, some, some floozy .”
“Well, he clearly knew you wouldn’t be okay with that which is why he didn’t tell you,” Santana said as she took Blaine’s glass from him to refill it. “He’s not the dreamboat you make him out to be, Anderson. We’ve been telling you since high school that he’s a sleazeball–”
“You!” Blaine said, pointing at her, “You liked him. You two were frien–friends.”
“Well, I’m also a sleazeball, which is why you shouldn’t have ever trusted him.” She handed him a glass that was far more tequila than sunrise but Blaine could barely taste the alcohol anymore.
Blaine took a long drink before letting his head fall back against her couch. “I just… I don’t know who I am… I don’t know who I am without him. Like–like you and Brittany. He’s my other half.”
“You need a better other half, Blaine.”