written for Seblaine Week 2015, prompt: post-Glee. teaser of a longer fic. title taken from Little Black Dress by Sara Bareilles.
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Rewrite the Final Lines
part 1
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He's been thinking about them a lot. Second chances. All the added time that opened up in his life gave him too much space to think, to ponder all the crossroads in his life that might've send him down a different path.
What if he hadn't been bullied? What if he'd never come to Dalton? Would he have met Kurt?
What if he hadn't left Dalton? What if he hadn't squandered that second chance on– no, not squandered, past up to follow his heart, unaware that Dalton was a home rather than a temporary shelter.
What if he'd returned to Dalton when it still mattered? When he still could?
What if he hadn't proposed to Kurt?
It started as a mental exercise, something his therapist suggested he do to ease the guilt, and which only started paying off once he understood the purpose of the assignment. There was no real point in questioning every one of his past choices, they were made and couldn't be undone, and they helped build the man he is today; a man he'd stopped liking the moment his life fell apart.
It hasn't been easy, shouldering all the blame, learning no one blamed him but himself, before he'd started piecing his life back together. He went out with friends for drinks rather than cry on the couch over a tub of ice-cream, socialized in all his different circles, and found a new layer of passion in his work previously missing. Somehow that newfound zest for life also meant accepting invitations he might not otherwise; he's pretty sure that's how he ended up at the Dalton Academy Alumni Reunion.
Sixteen years since he first set foot in this building, rebuilt in every detail after the Great Fire of '15, fourteen years since he left, yet Dalton still welcomed him with open arms. Faces old and new greet him, picking out his face in some of the pictures littered throughout the entryway hall, and a piece of him that had shaken loose falls back into place. Nick and Wes and Jeff come over and talk about the good old days, but ask about his Broadway career with lights in their eyes, even though quite a few of the Warblers had shown up at his performances. It's both quiet and shocking, like wading into cold water, but Blaine Warbler's still alive and kicking inside him.
Even after all these years, Dalton feels like coming home.
He has a new home, of course, a wonderful home with Selene, and Kurt (still, despite everything), a great job, friends old and new. Dalton simply held a magic scarcely explicable in any certain terms. Only students and alumni could vouch for its powers.
In many ways Dalton was his second chance– not in a righting his wrongs kind of way, he hadn't come here seeking redemption, but it proved a safe place where he could rebuild the boy who got broken down to tiny pieces; by hatred, by ignorance, by intolerance. If it weren't for Dalton those pieces might've turned to hatred, or self-loathing, gotten broken up into tinier shards until he vanished into dust.
Somehow, Dalton looked out for him.
Halfway through the evening he catches a breather outside, a paneled window opening up onto the front lawn, a few bushes but mainly crisp and green grass meticulously maintained. He follows behind a boy– a man, now, whose eyes crossed his in a room filled with alumni, familiar green and the few freckles caught in his eyebrow, their shared past a distant echo of a chance lost.
"I'm sorry I never gave you a second chance."
And when Sebastian Smythe finally turns to face Blaine Anderson his breath doesn't catch, his world doesn't start to make sense; he dips a toe in, testing the waters. He's still Blaine, and Sebastian's a boy he lost touch with a long time ago.
"Excuse me?"
He shrugs. "You deserved one."
Sebastian's eyes narrow on him, indescribably different yet the same, a hint of the Dalton schoolboy curled around a corner of his mouth. "Old age making you soft, killer?" he asks, one hand in a pocket, the other around a glass of champagne, the nickname of old wrapping around a sense of self he's been steadily recapturing. Still, his eyes skip down to the circle of untanned skin around his ring finger, fading with time.
"Divorce is."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." He laughs unaffected, hoping to offset the boy he once was with the man he is now, less shy, less naïve perhaps, someone who's accepted his situation. He's not someone's husband anymore, and even though he's been swimming against the current, even though there are still moments he curls up on the couch and cries, he's accepted that.
"You're here with your boyfriend?" comes his next question, as unexpected as his earlier admission.
"Date, more like."
Amusement curls around his lips, stripped naked in Sebastian's presence in a way he hasn't been since they were teenagers. Despite the way they parted, their encounters at the Lima Bean sit snug at the dead center of his high school experiences; the late night texts, the early morning messages, they're all part of that past he's stopped second-guessing. "Same old Sebastian."
"Rejection will do that to a guy."
"Oh my God"—he hiccups a laugh—"you haven't changed."
Thing is though, he can see all the ways in which Sebastian has changed right off the bat. Presumably he hasn't worn the Dalton blazer in years, but Sebastian no longer sports the casual popped collars of his youth either– they've been replaced by a sleek navy blue suit, hand-stitched, fitted at the waist. His tie, of course, matches the suit perfectly.
"I'm in advertising now," Sebastian says, stressing the 'advertising' part as if it somehow makes sense and the job's tailored to his personality the way his suit is to his body. And it does make sense. Sebastian's quick tongue used to get him in trouble. Now it gets him paid.
He could voice his thoughts, he's tempted to, but he's afraid Sebastian will turn that into something entirely too vulgar. Mostly he's afraid that this feels awfully familiar, even with ten years separating them.
"What about you?" Sebastian asks. "Still conquering Broadway?"
"Kind of focusing on the new generation right now. Teaching kids."
"You and Kurt—"
"We still see each other. We're friends." His lips set in a tight line. "But we haven't worked together since we separated."
"Must be hard."
After almost a year it shouldn't be– they separated six months before filing for divorce, found a place of their own because neither could afford the upkeep on the duplex on a single salary, figured out a schedule so Selene could still see both her parents on a regular basis.
It wasn't any one thing that drove them apart, rather it was many small things that stacked up over time and either Kurt or him never saw the need to address. Seven years after they got married in that cute barn alongside Brittany and Santana, where they vowed to be each other's everything, they somehow turned into two people living side by side; like roommates who had a daughter and slept together, were affectionate when any one occasion called for it, but apart from loving Selene more than life itself they had irrevocably lost something that sealed their bond. They worked together, they lived together, but where their individual happiness was concerned it seemed they'd given up.
He still loved Kurt, he more than likely always would, but Kurt realized long before he ever did they were only ever in love with the idea of each other.
They were much better as friends than they were as lovers, or husbands.
He didn't blame Kurt; his crippling guilt didn't stem so much from a sense of obligation to Kurt, but a sense of duty towards their daughter. Selene won't remember the divorce, she's too young for that, but she'll still grow up in a broken home.
"It's hard," he admits, sad that their conversation had to turn so serious. "But it's for the best."
"We should have coffee sometime."
Sebastian sends him tumbling headfirst into the water without warning.
"For old times' sake."
He catches Sebastian's eyes, apprehension at absolute zero. No matter how much he had going on back in high school, he and Sebastian found a way to talk, either over text or short phone calls, or at the counter at the Lima Bean. Things came easy with Sebastian, and if he's being honest, well, he could use a bit of that in his life.
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tbc
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