Adversity of Fortune

For in all adversity of fortune

the worst sort of misery is

to have been happy.

-Boethius

"Fuck!" Sebastian yelled out loud as he legs suddenly buckled under him. He tried to get back up as quickly as possible so none of his teammates or coach would see him, but his right ankle wouldn't support his weight. He was fairly used to this happening, but today it still caught him by surprise. He tried again to get back to his feet, but the pain only increased and by now some of his teammates were headed his way. Shit, he was their captain- he couldn't show weakness, no matter how much this fucking hurt- so he stood up and put as little weight as possible on his right foot though his leg was still throbbed in pain.

"You okay, Cap?" Adam yelled out as he approached Sebastian.

"Yeah, let's get back to running the play!" the lacrosse captain yelled to his team. And attempted to run again, but almost fell to the ground, again. Fuck!

"Smythe, front and center," barked the coach. Sebastian gritted his teeth as he ran as normally as he could to the coach.

"You seemed to take a nasty fall out there," Sebastian didn't bother on correcting the coach by telling him that he only fell because of the pain. "Go to the school nurse, she should still be here and have her take a look," the coach must have seen Sebastian about to protest because he spoke again. "I can't have my captain pushing himself into not being able to play the rest of the season. Now go!" he barked out the last part making it non-negotiable.

Sebastian grumbled but limped over to his duffle and slung it over his shoulder while heading back inside Dalton. He waited until the door closed behind him before frantically searching for his phone. When he pulled it out he saw no new messages. She always told him if something happened to one of them so he wouldn't worry, unless it was more serious than he thought. Fuck! Worried, he immediately dialed his little sister's cell. She answered on the third ring.

"Hey, Seb, what's up?" she asked happily.

"Are you okay?" he barely waited until she done greeting him before blurting it out.

"Of course, Seb-"

"Mom and Dad? They're fine too?" his voice choked out, hoping they were fine, and yet also wishing that they were the one's who were hurt. It'd be much simpler if it were one of them.

"We're all fine- wait, are you-? Did something happen?" she whispered the last part out. She knew his policy on friends and more. He only had sex buddies and teammates never friends that he actually cared about- let alone a boyfriend or girlfriend.

"I'm just- peachy," Sebastian gritted out as his foot nearly caused him to trip and a fresh wave of pain hit him. "I've gotta go- bye!"

"But-" he hit the 'end call' button before she could needle him about this. He leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his hair. He had an idea of who it could be, but he really didn't want it to be her. Instead he brought up Blaine's name on his phone and hit 'call'.

"Sebastian?"

"Hey, sexy," Sebastian tried to keep his tone neutral and flirty, but it came off as strained. Blaine rolled his eyes at Sebastian's half-hearted attempt at flirting.

"Look, right now's not really a good time..."

"Why, are you okay?" Sebastian asked as nonchalantly as possible. He heard Blaine sigh as if in annoyance. Well, screw him for caring!

"Yeah, we're just restarting practice. Rachel just had a nasty fall when Finn tripped her in the last number," Blaine mentioned, because he knew that Sebastian and Rachel were quasi-friends, though they didn't think he knew. "At first it seemed like she might have sprained her ankle, but she ended up being fine." Sebastian barely resisted the urge to yell out a curse again. Fuck Blaine and his big fucking mouth. He could have still played ignorant, but now that the evidence was placed before him it was irrefutable.

"Glad she's good- look, I'll talk to you later. Bye."

"Bye," Blaine answered back, but his eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the phone call before turning back to Schue who was trying, once again, to coach gigantor through the simplest of steps.

"What did Craigslist want?" Kurt murmured to Blaine.

"Not really sure," he answered, still confused at the encounter.

Sebastian hit his head against the wall, once, twice, and a third time before he slung his duffle over his shoulder and limped his way down the largely deserted hallway. He swore his leg was hurting more now.

Fucking T-Rex, he knew that he hated that kid, and now he had fucked up again, and Rachel could have gotten physically hurt because he had the coordination of a drunken bear, yet he insisted on dancing. It also sucked that Rachel was complaining that he continually demanded to be paired with her.

Ever since the disastrous failure of a Wedding after Regionals- Finchel had been no more. Rachel had known that something was wrong with Quinn and the big whale had a hissy fit when Rachel kept stalling. Then they had gotten the call and they had all rushed to their cars, but not Finn, who still had it through his thick head that he was getting married that day, because no other day would work for him. And then he had the balls to accuse Rachel of "choosing Quinn over them" the fact that their friend and his ex-girlfriend was in critical condition didn't seem to register in his pea-sized brain. Rachel was livid and had thrown her (pathetic excuse for an) engagement ring at him as well as her bouquet and had screamed a few choice words at Finn, which had made her blush just talking about them and had refused to tell Sebastian what she had said before she had calmly asked gay face to give her a ride to the hospital. That's one thing he could say for the soprano, he had hated Finn and Rachel together with a passion no one else could probably hope to achieve except for maybe Sebastian at this exact moment.

He opened the door to the nurse's office to find the elderly woman reading a magazine. Sebastian cleared his throat and the woman looked up, startled, before bustling over to him and helping (more like getting in his way) him to the small cot. She asked him what happened as she flitted around the room subjecting him a bunch of random tests.

"I fell wrong during lacrosse practice and coach sent me here." She turned her attentions solely to his right ankle, poking, prodding, and mumbling to herself.

He knew he should tell Rachel- well, something! But he couldn't tell her the truth, no one but his family knew about his- condition...

"You're lucky," the nurse said, interrupting his thoughts. She propped up his right foot and had wrapped his ankle in ice. "It could have been a lot worse judging by how close your ligament was to completely rupturing but it's just a moderate sprain, though-"

"Will I be able to play lax?" Sebastian demanded, already impatient with the babbling woman.

"-As I was saying, you'll have to avoid putting any strain on your ankle for two weeks-"

"We have a game next week! I'm the captain, I can't just-"

"You can and you will," the nurse stated sternly. "I'm telling the coach that you have to stay off this ankle." she made her way towards the door, and Sebastian sat up and started to move as if to get off the cot.

"Stay right where you are until I get back or I will bench you for a month!" Sebastian glared at the woman's retreating back. Great now he was left with nothing but his thoughts- and all he could think of was his painful-as-fuck sprain and the brunette that unknowingly caused it. He pulled out his phone and played a mindless game that he had hoped would distract him. It didn't and was made even worse when he got a text from the person he was trying not to think of.

He debated responding, but he didn't want her to think something was wrong so he ended up sending her a message before the nurse reentered the room and he stashed his phone in his pocket.

"Coach Hanson was very understanding. He agreed to keep you off the field though you can still help coach your team with him, provided you do it from the sidelines and stay off that ankle." Sebastian muttered, disgruntled, as she took the ice off of his ankle and wrapped it in a flexible brace. She listed out instructions as she fetched crutches for him.

"And if the pain gets any worse come and see me!" and with that she had dismissed him from her nursing office abruptly, with another threat about not overdoing it. It took some maneuvering before he was able to juggle his crutches and his duffle bag. Once he could he headed to his dorm, knowing that practice was over by now, and going to the fields would be of no use.

He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, but was having enough trouble with these damn crutches that he had to wait until he was in his room (sans his roommate thank whatever deity was looking out for him) and reclining on his bed before he could pull out his phone.

"I was wondering if you'd be willing to accompanying me to the Lima Bean?"

He was dying to see her. In fact his chest literally hurt at the thought of not seeing her at the first chance he got, but his head was screaming at him to stay the fuck away from this chick that had unwittingly forced him to l-care so damn much about her that-

His fingers flew across the screen and hit send before his heart could change his mind.

"Have an essay and a killer class load and a qualifier lacrosse game this week. Can't, rain check?" Before he could divert his attention to something else his phone received a response.

"Of course! Would you like me to come up and help you with homework, you know I'm great with English and I know you have a history test coming up. Want a study buddy? ;D"

Fuck, he rubbed his hand through his hair, was she trying to kill him? But even if she did come over- what would he say about his damn leg?

Lax injury, like what everyone else thought, another voice whispered in his head. This voice was doing it's best to convince Sebastian to invite Rachel over. He still couldn't decide, so he stalled.

"I'm studying anatomy and there's always room for more ;)"

The reply was swift: "Sebastian Alexander Smythe! There's no need to be crass. I will only come over if you promise to keep it clean!"

Sebastian rolled his eyes at her predictable response.

"Keeping it clean, now where's the fun in that?"

"I'll show you how much fun it can be- if you'd answer my original question: may I come over?"

He found himself typing and had hitting 'send' before he could question himself.

"Can't wait to see you"

He could act normally around her, and just because he had discovered (and had it confirmed) that he had far deeper feelings for his friend than she had for him, this didn't mean that anything had to change.

"Be there soon!"

Who the fuck was he kidding? He was beyond screwed.

A/n: Alright, first of all this is for my "Synchronized Melodies" fans because it's taking a little longer to write the current chapter than I anticipated. I wasn't going to actually post this, but I felt bad about this time lapse… so there you go.

This story was inspired by the summary of my friend's book "Bruiser" by Neal Shusterman. I've never had the time to read the story, but the summation intrigued me, so thus this story was born.

This is a oneshot, though it could become a multi-chap, but I'm not going to do that. Most likely. I'm going to focus on "Synchronized Melodies" (which you should check out if you are interested!)

Please review if you enjoyed it!

Cheers.

**EDIT NOTE**
So, I posted this without editing it, and realized that I put 'Smythe' instead of 'Smith' (a reviewer pointed that out as well). Also I forgot to say that if you're confused about what's happening you can PM me or read the 'Bruiser' summary. The general thing that's going on is that when Sebastian loves someone their physical pain becomes his. Which is why I put it under the genre 'Supernatural'. And if I ever do continue this story everything would be explained in further detail.
**END EDIT NOTE**