Chapter Text
Wanna stay, wanna run, wanna disappear
I keep biting my tongue just to keep you here
Made you wait for someone I could never be
And it's killing me
Comfort - Nicholas Galitzine
Sebastian Smythe never thought he’d fall in love. He had watched his parents his whole life, the way love had grown stagnant and turned into hatred, or worse, indifference. He never wanted to watch someone he once loved grow to simply not care. So he lost his virginity at the soonest opportunity and spent the next few years of his life experimenting with anyone that was willing to sleep with him. Figuring out what he liked and how to get it.
So when he met Blaine Anderson, he mistook his feelings for lust. It was a stronger desire than he had ever felt before, but he knew exactly how to sate it and move on.
But Blaine wasn’t as easy of a conquest. He rebutted his every advance and rolled his eyes every time Sebastian tried to flirt with him. It was infuriating. And exciting.
But while Blaine had no interest in sleeping with Sebastian, he certainly didn’t avoid him. He sought him out at every school event, sat with him at lunch, dragged him into study groups, even hand-delivered an invitation to the Warblers. For all his rebuttals, Blaine certainly didn’t seem to actually be disinterested in Sebastian.
Blaine was lying on his stomach on the floor of Sebastian’s dorm room, working on a history paper while Sebastian pretended to be doing calculus on his bed. Instead, he was watching Blaine casually. The way he drummed his fingers against his textbook and bit the end of his pen. His feet casually kicking in the air behind him. He really provided an enticing view.
“I can feel you ogling me, Sebastian,” he said without looking up.
Sebastian grinned and snapped his textbook shut. “Oh yeah, and what are you going to do about it?”
Blaine sighed, and it wasn’t the half-annoyed, half-amused sigh Sebastian normally got. It sounded resigned. “You know my answer to that, Sebastian.”
Sebastian slid to the end of the bed. “What are you waiting on, Killer? You’re here, in my room, alone, in spite of all of your friends’ advice. You clearly want this just as much as I do.”
Blaine folded his arms and buried his face in them. He groaned in frustration before pushing himself up and turning to face Sebastian. “What I’m waiting on,” he said, “is for you to pull your head out of your ass and ask me on an actual date instead of just trying to get in my pants.”
Sebastian laughed and Blaine flushed, looking away, his jaw tense. “You know I don’t do dates, Anderson.”
“And I don’t do casual sex, so we’re at an impasse.” Blaine started to gather his things.
“Blaine, come on,” Sebastian said, sliding onto his knees on the floor, reaching out to stop Blaine’s hands. “You’re making such a big deal out of this–”
“Maybe I don’t want to lose my virginity to someone who’s gonna put a notch in their headboard!” Blaine cried. “Maybe I want to be in a relationship, maybe even be in love. You may be okay with sex not meaning anything, but it means something to me, okay?”
Sebastian sat back on his heels, face pale. Blaine’s bottom lip quivered. He sniffled and dragged the back of his hand over his nose. He finished gathering his things and stood up. Sebastian looked up at him, but Blaine wouldn’t meet his eyes. He bit his lip like there was something he wanted to say before he shook his head and left.
Sebastian was still reeling. He knew Blaine was a romantic, but he didn’t know he was a virgin. He’d certainly popped the cherry of many of his partners, but he hadn’t expected Blaine to be one of them. He was too accepting of Sebastian’s innuendos. Too comfortable with just glaring at Sebastian. Not the stuttered blushing he normally got that clued him in on the situation.
He’d also definitely seen frustrated tears pooling in Blaine’s eyes before he left.
And those tears left him more shaken than he was comfortable with.
—
Sebastian let Blaine avoid him for a week.
A week of Sebastian pacing his room, fighting with the guilt that raged through him.
A week of ignoring any and all attempts from his other friends to spend time with him.
A week locked in his solo dorm room sorting out why hurting Blaine upset him so much.
He tracked Blaine down with a bouquet of flowers on the seventh day. He was in the library with Kurt, his best friend who loathed Sebastian far more than any of Blaine’s other friends. He took a deep breath and approached them, the flowers held behind his back.
Blaine looked up, brow creased when he saw the nervous tapping of Sebastian’s foot. He knew it would look strange to Blaine. Sebastian Smythe didn’t get nervous. Cool and aloof were the words destined to be written on his gravestone. But Sebastian was terrified.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. Blaine sat up straighter, looking at Sebastian with interest. Kurt scowled beside him, eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry I was an asshole. I’m sorry I… I’m sorry I laughed when you said you wanted me to ask you on a date. That was cruel. I’m sorry for hurting you.” He presented the flowers and Blaine’s jaw dropped. Even Kurt’s gaze softened a little bit. “I didn’t know what your favorite flower was, but… your smile lights up the room like you’re just a ball of sunshine, and that’s what marigolds always make me think of.”
Blaine took them carefully, staring at them in gentle awe. He stroked the petals and buried his nose in them and Sebastian’s anxiety started to quell.
“I don’t… this isn’t something I’m familiar with. I don’t do,” he gestured at the flowers, “this.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand what you make me feel, but what I do understand is that when I thought about never getting to see that smile again…” he shrugged, “it felt like I was dying.”
Blaine’s eyes went misty.
“Wait, no,” Sebastian said, “that wasn’t supposed to make you cry.”
Blaine laughed wetly and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry, that’s just… do you realize how fucking romantic that sounds?”
Sebastian pursed his lips. “Don’t say that too loudly, I have a reputation to uphold.”
Blaine shook his head, that look of exasperated fondness he always had for Sebastian was back where it belonged and Sebastian’s heart warmed. Blaine raised an eyebrow at him. “Do you have something else to say, Sebastian?”
Sebastian smiled and bit his lip. “Would you, Blaine Anderson, accompany me to dinner at La Scala tomorrow night?”
Blaine’s smile was blinding.
—
Accepting that he had fallen in love was very difficult for Sebastian.
Telling Blaine he loved him for the first time was terrifying.
Blaine hesitated for the smallest moment, his jaw dropped in surprise, and Sebastian’s heart crumpled.
But then Blaine was grabbing his face in both hands and kissing him desperately, whispering “I love you”s into Sebastian’s mouth and his heart knit itself back together.
Maybe they’d be different.
Maybe Sebastian was worthy of love. And maybe Blaine would be willing to love him for the rest of their lives. All he had to do was not scare him away.
—
Every sane person would tell Sebastian that isolating himself from Blaine anytime he had a negative emotion was unhealthy. And maybe they were right. All Sebastian knew was that he would do anything to keep Blaine, and allowing Blaine to see the darkest parts of him was not conducive to that happening.
He’d always had a habit of hiding from the world.
His father told him self-doubt showed how little he had grown up.
His mother told him his anger wasn’t befitting of a gentleman.
So when he felt anything his parents deemed unsuitable, he hid in his room, he went for a long drive, he ran into the woods behind their house. So no one could see that he wasn’t perfect. That he was terrified of the day that everyone figured out what a fraud he was. That behind the arrogant smirk was a boy who’d never been allowed to cry.
Blaine was certainly not allowed to see that part of him.
—
The day that Sebastian came home from one of his personally prescribed mental health sabbaticals and found their apartment devoid of any sign of Blaine, he felt like he was dying.
He convinced himself it was a mistake. Something else had to be going on. Blaine wouldn’t just… leave him. He’d done everything in his power to make sure Blaine stayed. He would come back. Maybe it was his turn for a mental health sabbatical.
After a week he realized he was lying to himself.
Blaine had left.
He hadn’t had a panic attack since he moved out of his parent’s house. But the crushing weight of losing Blaine suddenly crashed down on him all at once and he couldn’t breathe. He ended up in a ball on the living room floor, sobbing and screaming, clawing at his hair. Blaine was the only thing good in his life. The only person who had ever truly cared about him.
And he was gone.
He didn’t know at what point he called Blaine. He didn’t know why he’d called him. This was exactly the kind of thing he had protected Blaine from for years. But suddenly he heard Blaine’s voice over the phone as he pleaded for him to just come home.
Blaine didn’t.
But he didn’t break up with Sebastian either.
Sebastian had to accept what he could get.
—
Sebastian didn’t register time after his father died. He couldn’t see the passage of it. He had no way to keep track of it. He let his phone die and never recharged it. He just floated around his parent’s house, now devoid of his mother who went to the lake house to “grieve”. He didn’t think she was actually grieving. He assumed she was sipping mimosas and getting “massages” from attractive men younger than Sebastian.
In the back of his head, he knew he should tell Blaine. He knew it wasn’t good for him to be alone with those feelings. To be alone in that house.
But habit told him he would scare Blaine away.
He would figure it out. He’d compartmentalize. And he’d go home. And everything would be fine.
When he finally turned on his phone again, he saw the text from Blaine.
He had months of text backlogged in his phone. Hundreds from Blaine. Dozens of voicemails of Blaine begging him to just tell him he was okay. The final message had been sent a month before.
I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.
Sebastian knew it was too late.
He turned the phone off again.
And started the grieving process anew.
—
Sebastian didn’t know why dating Blaine had turned him into a relationship kind of person. He thought it was only something he wanted with Blaine. But suddenly he had a new boyfriend every couple of weeks. Someone he said he’d stick with. He could make them stay.
They never did. Sometimes it was him that pushed them away. Cut off contact. Blocked their number. Usually, he just disappeared for a week and they assumed it was over.
So he really didn’t think much of it when he and Blaine started… whatever they were doing. Fooling around. Breaking each other’s hearts.
Sure, he knew it was cheating, but he also knew they’d leave him anyway. So why would he let them stop him from having one last happy moment with Blaine?
—
Jeremy… Jeremy didn’t seem to have an interest in leaving. He was patient. He was kind. He didn’t leave when Sebastian disappeared on him.
He was like Blaine.
He didn’t make Sebastian feel the same things he had for Blaine. No one ever could. But he had the same soft smile, and the same concerned look when Sebastian came back to him after going no contact for a few days.
He didn’t even realize they’d hit six months until Jeremy brought him flowers.
He knew it was a choice to let Blaine be there on a day he had plans with Jeremy. He’d never had trouble telling Blaine he was busy before. But suddenly he just didn’t want to do it anymore. He didn’t want to be with Jeremy.
He hadn’t expected Blaine to leave.
He didn’t know why it surprised him. It really shouldn’t have.
Blaine was a romantic.
Of course, he’d probably thought that despite the irregularity of their hookups that Sebastian was only seeing him. That it was proof that they were meant to be. That they could work it out.
Sebastian didn’t have it in him to be that foolish.
Maybe he’d wanted Blaine to leave.
To break himself free of whatever hold Sebastian still had over him.
But why did it feel just as awful as the first time he’d left?
—
Sebastian felt the imposing and enraged presence of Santana Lopez before he even turned around. Kurt was fun to bicker with. No matter how vicious they got, Kurt always kept Blaine’s emotions as a top priority. And fully tearing down Sebastian was not conducive to that. So he held back.
Santana didn’t have the same qualms.
Sebastian had intentionally stayed away from her since he and Blaine had started seeing each other again. Santana was just as likely to castrate him as to verbally assault him if it meant keeping him from hurting Blaine again.
He was too drunk to think of a quick escape. Or maybe he wanted to take any beating she had to give him. He certainly deserved it.
“Finding someone else to cheat on your boyfriend with, Smythe?” she said.
Sebastian chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. “We broke up, actually. Thanks for asking.”
“Ahh, did he finally realize you’re more of a snake than a human?”
Sebastian rolled his eyes and signaled for another round of shots from the bartender.
“Blaine is a mess right now,” she said, her gaze hard.
“Good,” Sebastian said, knocking back both shots quickly.
He was surprised she didn’t punch him. “You’ve always been a prick, Sebastian, but intentionally hurting Blaine is a new fucking low for you.”
Sebastian pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not– I didn’t want to hurt him. But maybe he’ll finally come to his senses and stay away from me. You’re not the only one who knows I was never good enough for him.”
Santana’s eyes softened the slightest bit. “Why haven’t you stayed away from him?”
“Because I have no regard for Blaine’s emotions, obviously. That and zero self-control.”
“Do you want this to be over? Are you trying to throw a nearly decade long relationship down the garbage shoot? Or is some part of you desperately trying to save it?”
Sebastian leveled her with a glare. “What are you doing here, Santana? I’m leaving him alone. I’ll block his number. Fuck, I’ll even move so he can’t storm our–” he took a deep breath, “my, so he can’t storm my apartment.”
“Is that why you haven’t moved? Why you’ve stayed there in a place that must be filled to the brim with memories of him? Are you torturing yourself? Hoping he’ll find his way home like a lost cat? Back to you ?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sebastian bit out.
Santana’s vicious anger had died and all she had for him was eyes filled with pity and curiosity. It made him sick.
He grabbed his last shot, downed it, and left.