Kurt rolls his eyes as Blaine ushers him toward the already forming circle of Warbler boys and Die Lieder girls – the show choir from Dalton's all-girl sister school, Crawford Country Day - in the center of the Warbler practice room.
"So, we're going to play Spin the Bottle?" Kurt groans as flashbacks of the first time he ever partook in a game of Spin the Bottle, at Rachel Berry's train wreck of a mildly drunken soiree, assault his memory. "How original."
"No," Jeff says, giddy as he watches his boyfriend Nick occupy a spot on the opposite side of the circle. "We're going to play Slap or Kiss."
Kurt raises an eyebrow at Jeff, then at Blaine.
"I'm judging you," he says, in case it isn't obvious. "Why do you keep putting me into these situations?"
"Okay, you can't actually blame me for the last one. It was your idea to go to that party," Blaine says, patting him on the back and giving his shoulders a firm, to-die-for massage.
"True," Kurt concedes, though he might agree to anything as long as Blaine keeps rubbing his shoulders.
"Besides, it'll be fun." Blaine gives Kurt one last shoulder squeeze and a quick peck on the cheek, then heads off to find a seat on the other side of the circle. It seems to be an unwritten rule that significant others sit on opposite sides. Kurt notices that Kevin and Avery split up, as do Chase and Amanda, and Jamie and Stephanie, the gaps in between filled in by the singles in the group.
"Yeah, well, I wanted to go to the movies," Kurt mumbles as he smooths his pants and straightens his jacket. "Movies are fun." He catches Jeff watching him with the same puppy dog eyes that Blaine can turn on in an instant, and wonders if that's a skill they teach in this school, since Nick and several of the other Warblers seem to be able to do it, too. "So, how do you play this game?" Kurt asks. He sits on the floor beside Jeff, watching Blaine from the side of his eye as he takes a seat next to Nick, scowling when Sebastian Smythe leaps over five students' heads to take the empty spot on Blaine's other side.
"Well, we play it a little differently than most people do," Thad explains when Jeff starts making faces at Nick, completely ignoring Kurt. "Traditionally, you spin the bottle, and whoever it lands on has to either slap you or kiss you. But you leave the room, and the group votes, so the only person who doesn't know is you. When you come back in, everyone gets to see if the person backs out or not."
"But here," Jamie continues, "you spin the bottle to find out who gets to either kiss you or slap you, but they decide which."
"And they have to do it immediately," Courtney, a girl to the left of Jeff, adds with a frightening giggle.
Kurt prays he doesn't get to find out personally which one she'd pick.
Kurt looks pointedly at Blaine, begging him with his eyes to reconsider the need to join in this disastrous attempt at inspiring inter-school relations, but finds him embroiled in a conversation with Sebastian, whose eyes keep zeroing in on Blaine's lips, his body inching closer until Blaine, scooting backward reflexively with each advance, is almost sitting in some poor alto's lap.
"Okay, well, can we get this started already?" Kurt asks, tearing his eyes away from Blaine and Sebastian, and focusing on the rest of the students milling around the circle, cursing them silently for wasting time. If he's going to be forced to humiliate himself for the sake of school spirit, or have to watch Blaine tonsil-deep in another heartbreaking lip-lock, he'd prefer to get it over with.
From out of nowhere, an empty beer bottle materializes. Kurt has no idea where it comes from, but poof! it appears, and the room gets tensely quiet.
Avery, one of the senior Warbler council members and their Slap or Kiss sponsor (since he first introduced the game to the Warblers at a similar get together years ago) kicks the game off with the first spin. The bottle lands on Chester, another senior Warbler, who leaps to his feet, stomps over to Avery with a wicked grin, and slaps the other boy across the face.
Avery's head snaps to the side, but his own grin doesn't shift. He doesn't even blink.
The boys and girls sitting in the circle clap, and roar with laughter. Kurt looks at Blaine with an expression of shock and fear. Blaine, laughing and clapping with the rest of the mob, catches Kurt's eye, and shrugs.
Crazy! They're all crazy! Even my boyfriend is crazy! Kurt thinks, shaking his head and wondering if it's too late to back out now. No one would notice, right, if he just snuck away? Not while they're celebrating this barbaric ritual. Kurt shifts in his seat, rising slowly to his knees, confident that he can escape while Avery and Chester are giving one another no-hard-feeling pats on the shoulder and bro-hugs. But one voice rises above the murmurs and anxious laughter, commanding everyone's attention while calling out Kurt specifically.
"Come on, princess," Sebastian announces from the opposite side of the circle, his elbow conspicuously poised on Blaine's shoulder as if the two of them were best buds, "don't look so pale! Woman up!"
The laughter starts up again, louder from the girls this time. Across the crowd, Kurt sees Blaine reprimanding Sebastian while Sebastian puts his hands up in defense and repeats worthless apologies. Kurt's face burn, and he wants to leave more than ever, but Sebastian's comment shames him into staying glued to his seat.
Besides, regardless of Sebastian's insult, Blaine doesn't seem inclined to leave, and Kurt's not going to stand up and walk out alone.
With the amount of students playing, the spins deliver a mixed bag of pairings. Many of the Dalton boys get paired with Crawford Country Day girls, and of course, most of them pick kiss over slap. Those few who do choose slap instead (those with girlfriends or with undisclosed reasons of their own) opt for gentle pats on the cheek. There's some boy-on-boy action, mostly slaps, but one or two nervous kisses, the most impressive between two junior boys – Max and Alec – who Kurt had never suspected of being gay, and they still might not be, but regardless, they didn't seem to care. Maybe they preferred kissing to being slapped. That might not be gay, just smart.
Blaine doesn't spin yet, and the bottle doesn't land on him, but Sebastian gets the bottle pointed at him twice, and both times he opts for slap instead of kiss, leaving two Warblers with huge red handprints across one cheek, so Kurt's pretty sure he knows what his modus operandi is. The Crawford girls show off, tongue kissing and feeling each other up when they get matched with one of their classmates. Otherwise, they're brutal, delivering resounding smacks across the cheek whenever the opportunity presents itself, until Kurt isn't sure what he's more afraid of - the possibility of his bottle landing on Sebastian…or one of them.
The bottle spinning honor travels from student to student around the circle, with some arbitrary rule thrown out in the beginning that the person to the right of the last person picked is the one who gets to go next. It's Kurt's turn before Blaine's, and in his head, Kurt tries to calculate how hard he has to spin the bottle to get it land to land on Blaine.
It's probably a one-in-a-million shot, but he has to at least give it a try. As the amber bottle spins, Kurt resolves that he wouldn't mind if it landed on Nick or Jeff, maybe. And if he gets one of the Crawford girls, well, years of taking Slushies to the face means he can probably deal with a hit.
But when the traitorous bottle slows down, then stops on Sebastian Smythe, Kurt feels his body turn to solid ice all over.
"Well, well, princess," Sebastian says, grinning like a hyena who just spotted the sickest, slowest, baby antelope in the savanna. He cracks his knuckles in the loudest, most obnoxious way possible, making the girls around him giggle like they're a part of his pack. "I have to say, I was hoping I would get you eventually."
"Bas," Blaine says in a warning tone, grabbing at the sleeve of Sebastian's blazer, but Sebastian pulls it free easily. Kurt's already on his feet, backing away and shaking his head.
"No, I'm…I'm not doing this," Kurt declares, his voice quivering with embarrassment and anger. Kurt shoots a look at Blaine, still sitting cross-legged on the floor, then up at Sebastian, stepping past the circle of students and walking in Kurt's direction. Kurt turns quickly and bolts from the room, half-running so he doesn't make too big of a fool of himself.
Why is he so upset? It's just a game.
Yeah, just like every other game that the Neanderthals of the past have created to hurt or humiliate people like him – people who have that one asshole in their lives that seems to wait forever for the opportunity to publicly tear them to shreds.
Kurt left one bully behind just to find one equally bad, if not badder.
"Kurt," Blaine calls out as Kurt leaves, his voice drowned out by the symphony of boos following Kurt as he races out the door.
Kurt hears footsteps chase after him. He's relieved, certain they're Blaine's. But when he turns to glance over his shoulder, slowing down to let him catch up, Kurt sees a very different boy pursuing him.
"Don't think you're getting out of this one so easily," Sebastian grumbles, the smirk on his thin lips becoming steadily more devious as he closes in.
Kurt quickens his pace, storming through another door and out into the main hallway, hoping to stumble across a teacher, an administrator, a janitor, some form of adult, preferably an authority figure, who should be present somewhere in a building filled with otherwise unsupervised adolescents. But there's no one, and now Kurt's out in the hallway with the one boy he wants nothing to do with – alone.
Sebastian doesn't say anything. He stalks over to Kurt with purposeful steps, and Kurt knows for certain what's going to happen. The same thing that happened to Bill and Steven in that stupid Warbler practice room, except worse, because Sebastian's had it out for Kurt ever since they met at The Lima Bean – ever since day one. Sebastian wants Blaine, and Kurt knows he'll do anything to get Blaine, but since he's been unsuccessful at it so far, he'll at least make Kurt pay.
And by being in that room and sitting in that stupid circle, Kurt more or less gave him permission to do just that.
Kurt turns back toward the practice room, thinking that he might find one savior in that circle of soft-brained imbeciles, or impress upon Blaine how badly he actually needs his help, but his back hits the door, and with Sebastian a foot away, he braces himself for a slap.
Or possibly a punch.
But Sebastian doesn't raise a hand to Kurt at all. He wraps an arm around Kurt's waist, pulls him in quickly, and before Kurt can open his mouth to say a word, Sebastian's mouth is locked over his. Kurt's whole body revolts. He brings up his arms to push Sebastian away, but Sebastian's mouth softens, his arm loosens, and for a split second, Kurt forgets where he is or what's going on.
Because this isn't the same chaste kiss that other unfortunate boys shared for the group's amusement, and this definitely isn't a slap across the face.
At least, not in the usual sense.
In that second of confusion, it feels almost like kissing Blaine that first time, when everything was exciting and new, and all Kurt wanted after Blaine's lips left his was more.
But this is Sebastian, not Blaine. And this is a game, not love.
Before Kurt can feel any more confused by what's happening, Sebastian lets go, insufferable smirk fixed to his face like it always is, but his eyes searching Kurt's eyes, looking for something.
Looking, Kurt realizes, for a yes. For a more. For a please.
Sebastian takes a step forward, like he might kiss Kurt again, and Kurt might have let him, but this scenario rings a bit too familiar – a bit too much like what made Kurt go to Dalton in the first place. That same fear, that same anger from the locker room when Dave Karofsky kissed him suddenly overwhelms Kurt. He swings before he knows it, slapping Sebastian across the face so hard that the sound echoes off the hallway walls, and from inside the practice room, he hears about fifty boys and girls groan in unison.
"Oooo!"
"Ouch!"
"God, did you hear that?
"That had to hurt!"
"Well, yeah. Do you see the mark he left on my face?"
"Dude! It's still there!"
Outside the door, Sebastian brings a hand to his sore cheek, but he can't seem to stop smiling. Sebastian rubs it hard, till Kurt can barely see the mark, his eyes never leaving Kurt's face. He leaves Kurt there, leaning up against the door, and re-enters the practice room to a combination of laughter and jeers.
"Man, Bas!" a voice Kurt doesn't know by heart says with a laugh. "I can't believe you actually did that!"
"Yeah, well," Kurt hears Sebastian say, gloating in a smug voice, "he had it coming."
Kurt hears feet race his way. Blaine rounds the door and finds him, leaning against the door for support, his hands covering his flushed cheeks.
"Are you okay?" Blaine asks, looking Kurt over for injuries. His eyes stop on the red splotches creeping up Kurt's face. "Oh my God! He must have hit you hard! Your cheeks are so red! Which one did he get?" Blaine's fingertips hover, and he hisses sympathetically, looking at the hand-shaped marks, which weren't made by hands at all.
Kurt looks at Blaine, then peeks around the doorway at Sebastian, catching him as he turns away, as if Kurt just missed Sebastian looking back at him.
"Yeah, I…I'm fine," Kurt stammers. "He just…he caught me off guard."