Title: Things Are Different
Pairing: Seblaine
Word Count: 1,512
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: SeblaineWeek2013- Day 1: College
Summary: College changes everyone. Especially those who want to change. Or, the one in which Blaine and Sebastian run into each other on the subway.
A/N: Originally posted for Seblaine Week over on Tumblr during Seblaine week. This is being reposted over here.
Sebastian has never had any delusions about life. It's not like the movies. Still, he doesn't know how it's gotten so messed up. Sebastian has never run from anywhere before, but as July gives way to August, and he packs up his things, he has never been more relieved to get away from anywhere before. He moves into an apartment in New York, and tries to leave Westerville, Ohio and the man he used to be in the past. It is easier said than done.
New York is the city of infinite possibilities, a fact Sebastian takes advantage of. He shares his apartment with Tyler, a nineteen-year-old hipster art student. They both go to NYU and sometimes Tyler drives him up the wall, and honestly, Sebastian wonders what on Earth Tyler thinks he's going to do with a degree in art, but he's doing his best to be a better person, so he keeps his mouth shut. He even poses for Tyler once, not that he'll be telling anyone about that.
He gets a job too, working at a bookstore on 6th Avenue to help pay for rent without asking his parents for money. They pay his tuition and would probably pay for everything else too, but Sebastian thinks it's about time he starts doing things like a normal kid, even if it is stupid things like complaining about waking up for work and stupid customers that come into the store.
He even joins a frat. He gets invited to come check it out by a couple of upperclassmen in his major classes. The guys in the frat remind him of the Warblers, a little bit. Like Blaine's Warblers. He wonders if that was his fault too. If the shift in the tone of the club had been his own need to win poisoning what Blaine had left behind. He rushes the frat, despite Tyler's raised eyebrow, and gets his bid. Things are going to be different here, with these guys. He volunteers to tutor for the frat, and gets coffee with Thierry and Rob on Wednesdays.
He still goes out. He still drinks and picks guys up in bars. He is a college student after all and all but allergic to completely shitless romantic gestures. But he's also the guy that hangs out with his roommate, who works at that really old bookstore around the corner from Starbucks. It's a startling realization that he's someone here. He's someone's friend, someone's tutor, someone's brother.
Things are different here. Most of the time, Sebastian feels good about the way things are going in New York. Most of the time he appreciates the changes he's made in his life. And then there are the times he feels like he's too late. That maybe if he had been a better person sooner, the guys would have come to him about Hunter's crazy plan before it was too late to stop him. Maybe if he had been a better friend, a better leader, he and Trent wouldn't have been the only ones proceeding with their first choice of college plans.
Some days, Blaine feels like his entire life has been a delusion. Those are the days he knows are going to suck. Some days, Blaine has trouble remembering what he had done with his life before Kurt. He knows he was happy, he just can't figure out how to get there again. But one rejected proposal later, Blaine knows he can't go back to what they had. So he moves forward.
Strangely, the prospect of New York excites him no less after Kurt. Blaine shrugs it off, and doesn't let it bother him. He's done letting things fester until he can't ignore them anymore. That's not who he's going to be anymore. He ruthlessly cuts Kurt out of his life. It's probably a dick move, especially when Kurt says he wants to stay friends, but Blaine can't be "just friends" with Kurt right now. Especially Kurt's confusing definition of "just friends". And they aren't getting back together. Not now, not ever. So why can't he be a little selfish? (A lot of reasons, if all the calls he gets from Kurt's friends suggest anything. He ignores them anyway).
He surprises a lot of people at the end of senior year by turning down NYADA in favor of Columbia. With all the possibilities opening up in front of him, Blaine doesn't want to cage himself into a musical career. He goes in undecided, and shrugs it off when he decides to join the music department after all. His parents exchange worried looks when he tells them over Skype, but congratulate him anyway.
With the issue of his major solved, Blaine turns to the rest of his life. He's determined to do all the stupid things that people claim as hallmarks of freshman year. He had missed most of senior year, wrapped up in the drama of his non-relationship, and he is determined to make it up this year. Blaine has always been more ambitious than people give him credit for. He auditions for the acapella groups on campus, and gets an invite to join the Kingsmen. He gets a job working at a local coffee shop, and even gets to sing there once a week. The city is filled with new kinds of people, people who don't know he was the lead singer of the Warblers, or Kurt Hummel's ex-boyfriend. Blaine has always made friends quickly, and soon he's being dragged out to bars with friends from class, or taken to performances with the Kingsmen.
Blaine is still warm and friendly. He still spends his money on novelty bowties and still likes to help his friends out. But Blaine likes to think he's just more blunt and outspoken than he used to be. He joins the LGBT on campus and parties harder than he used to. There are a couple dates he goes on that are nice, but don't get his heart racing. He has no problem breaking things off.
Things are different here. He has friends that are his. He's built a life that is his and his alone. In New York, no one calls him Blaine Warbler like he needs to be reminded that he isn't like everyone else in the room. In New York, Blaine can just be. In New York, Blaine doesn't have to try so hard to fit in and feel like people like him. Because there are millions of people in this city, and Blaine thinks he's found the ones that are like him. But no matter how well things are going, Blaine doesn't try to bridge the gap between Lima and New York. He doesn't introduce his friends from school to the members of New Directions he still keeps in contact with. They are separate parts of his lives. Things are different in New York, but Blaine is still afraid that seeing Kurt again will bring him back to where he started again. That being around Kurt again will remind him of all the reasons that he isn't good enough to be where he is.
It's been almost a year to the day since they last saw each other when Blaine Anderson and Sebastian Smythe step on the same subway car. Blaine takes this route every Tuesday, on the way back to his apartment from his weekly singing gig. Sebastian usually catches the train before this one, but he'd been held up a little at his study group and missed it. They're both just getting back to their routines after winter break, both a little shook up from their recent trips back to Ohio, and trying desperately to hang on to the progress they've made.
The coincidence isn't lost on either of them, as they look at each other from across the car. And then Blaine makes his way over to stand by Sebastian. They're different now, and it's easy for them to see the changes in the other.
Blaine smiles, easy as ever and says, "Hey."
"Hey, Killer," Sebastian drawls, but the smile he directs Blaine's way is genuine.
The conversation is unsurprisingly stilted at first, but the awkwardness slips away as they discover their new dynamic. They talk until Blaine gets off two stops before Sebastian. And the next week, Sebastian skips the early train to see Blaine on his way home. It becomes tradition until he finally weasels out of Blaine the location of his gig. From then on, Sebastian is a permanent fixture at Blaine's Tuesday night set before they take the subway back together. Sebastian claims it's because he needs a coffee and good company after the idiocy that is his study group right up until the day Blaine kisses him good night before he gets off the subway.
Neither of them is sure how it progresses from there. It just does, like it's always been there. And on days that they're feeling introspective, they think that maybe it has always been there, hidden by muddled priorities and relationships that had long since stopped being healthy. But, things are different in New York. They are different in New York; better, they'd like to think. And maybe, that's what they've always needed.