Title: Sebastian's Past
Rating: M (see warnings)
Characters: Sebastian, Nick, OFC
Summary: This is my headcanon for Sebastian Smythe's past. Just kind of background information for my "Second Chance" verse and relevant to my upcoming piece, "Wet Sleeves and a Conversation." Warnings inside.
Warnings: Warnings: Mentions of bullying, suicide, self-harm. Proceed with caution. Low level coarse language, nothing too extravagant there.
Disclaimer: If I owned Glee, it would be about the Warblers, not ND.
SEBASTIAN'S PAST
I wasn't always the arrogant prick I am now. Of course, no one ever believes me when I say it. That's the problem with high school – you act a certain way and no one will ever believe a word that suggests otherwise. So I'm writing it down because then maybe one day, someday, someone else will listen.
Back in freshman year, at my old school, I came out pretty early on. Kind of the same as Blaine from what he told me. I was at a public school – while my dad is a state's attorney, that doesn't mean he had to send me to private school from the beginning. And I liked public school, it was more diverse, more fun. Until it wasn't. I came out and everything turned to shit. I was pushed around, beaten up, deposited in dumpsters – if a bully could conjure it and it wouldn't get them arrested, it happened to me.
So what pushed me over the edge? What made me so upset after Dave tried to kill himself? If all this happened, why did I try to blind Kurt?
I was on the lacrosse team and of course, I spent a lot of time in the locker rooms. And naturally, when you're gay in a homophobic town in the Midwest, the other guys on your team aren't exactly welcoming. They would steal my clothes while I showered or cut holes in my bag so all my books fell out – I'll give them credit for being creative but it pissed me off.
As with a lot of other kids who've been in that position, I began to lose hope. No one ever listens when you say you're being bullied – unless you're really lucky. So I tried to make them listen. I had this case from when I was younger that had held my reading glasses. It became my best friend and went with me everywhere, filled with razors and X-acto blades. Yes, I'm one of those kids. So sue me. When you're that desperate for someone to listen, you'll do anything. If that makes me an attention-seeker, fine, see if I give a damn.
… Anyway. I got depressed, as any kid would with that kind of stuff, and I got used to wearing sweaters. I no longer showered at school after lacrosse – which gave the others one less chance to bully me – and I always locked the bathroom door at home. My sister noticed something, as sister's do, but she never realised and she never talked to mom and dad about it so it slipped by unnoticed.
You've probably heard it said that cutting can be addictive – and by god it was addictive. Every day, morning and night AT LEAST. Without fail. I spent more time cleaning up blood and worrying about the pain showing on my face than I did about homework and part of me enjoyed that. But when I found out I was failing every class, I began to freak out a little.
It shouldn't have come as a surprise to me but it did. My brain wasn't right; I wasn't in the proper state of mind to comprehend things in the grand scheme. Cutting was cutting and failing school was failing school. To me, these things didn't overlap. So finding out I was failing made me freak out and I ended up in the hospital. My arms were a mess, my parents were furious at the school, my sister was emotionally destroyed and I just moved through it because I didn't have any other choice.
The school promised to sort out the bullying issue and I went back, not without becoming the counsellor's new best friend of course. It was horrible and it didn't fix anything but I pretended it did because I had no other choice. I learned to hide things better and just got angry.
I was allowed to go into sophomore year because my teachers knew I was smart and they had faith that I would pick up on the concepts I'd not studied. I kept going with the lacrosse team after a stern warning from the coach to "cut the depression crap" and life more or less returned to normal.
That year, I met Jesse. He was gay and he cut himself too. We got pretty close pretty fast and the relationship was toxic. We fuelled each other's bad habits. He was the first guy I did everything with and I do mean everything. He was my best friend and I think I was the one thing stopping him from leaving it all behind. Because I needed him.
So of course, because Fate is cruel, when Jesse did kill himself, I was lost. I'm not ashamed in admitting that I tried to join him but my sister found me. I'll never understand how this didn't kill her. She's so much stronger than anyone gives her credit for. If I had her strength, I'd be so much better off.
That was halfway through my sophomore year; dad took me and my sister to Paris after that. It was a nice change of scene and it forced me to stop cutting but it started again as soon as we got back. They don't know that yet and I don't intend for them to find out. I started hanging out at Scandals – where I met Dave – and joined the Warblers which occupies a lot of my time. I'm more distracted and the wounds are fewer but they're there. They'll always be there.
I just want a Kurt or a Blaine – is that really so much to ask?
