Title: Now You See Me (Now You Don't)
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: T
Characters/Pairing: Blaine Anderson, Sebastian Smythe, past Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel
Word Count: 3,014
Summary: For fifteen years, parts of his heart have been damaged by a friendship he ruined. Now he had the opportunity to step closer and announce his presence, seek forgiveness for crimes against the heart committed long ago, or retreat and pretend the potential encounter had never happened, hold onto the pain a little longer until a time when the edges of his heart might stop aching.
Warnings/Spoilers: Please don't pin me to a stake and burn me alive for this...
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Glee, FOX, Ryan Murphy, or anything else related to the FOX universe.

Steam rose from the grating near his foot, the putrid smell of burnt rubber and metal coating the sole of his shoe and so foul his nostrils flared. He stepped aside, bumping into a middle-aged woman that he frantically tried to apologise to for his rudeness. She glared at him and continued walking and he gritted his teeth before returning to typing the text message to his agent, confirming his interest in participating in the latest revival of West Side Story.

He hoped that a six-week run would freshen him up, that returning to his singing-and-dancing roots might revitalise him with some joy in life. He needed something to remind him about what he truly loved before his flight to Italy in early August to begin principal photography for the next three-month film shoot. It wasn't like he hated films – they paid good money for only a few months of work – but there was something about singing which was so carefree and liberating, something about carefully choreographed dancing that gave him some semblance of control over his life. There was an electricity when performing live, an intimate bond created when an audience hung off every word, every breath, every gesture. Behind a camera, he was reduced to performing the same moments over and over until the director was satisfied there was a useful moment they could edit together. He missed-

He looked up from his phone for a brief second before doing a double-take and squinting, certain that his eyes had to be betraying him. Surely it wasn't…? But…it sure looked like it…?

He bit his lip, glanced down at his phone, the half-finished message, and wavered on the decision he should make: step closer and announce his presence, seek forgiveness for crimes against the heart committed long ago, or retreat and pretend the potential encounter had never happened, hold onto the pain a little longer until a time when the edges of his heart might stop aching.

It had been fifteen years, fifteen long years, and there was still a chamber of his heart that throbbed with guilt over the way their friendship had ended: a swift slam of the door in his face after an accepted proposal that left him with clouds for shoes. The hurt which swelled beneath him had removed the air from beneath his feet. His return to reality had been immediate and broken some of his bones. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't wondered if proposing had been a mistake, if he'd ended any true chance at happiness, at marital bliss, by not realising there were better options than Kurt.

Not that he'd ever mentioned any of his concerns to Kurt.

He heaved a sigh and pocketed his phone, approaching the male who was sitting at an outside table. One long leg was folded over the other as he reclined into his chair. His gaze – concealed by large, dark sunglasses to shield his eyes from the bright glare of the summer sun – was fixed on the road. Occasionally his head turned, watching a car go past or following the movement of a pedestrian. It was obvious, now that Blaine was closer, that the slope of his nose, the freckles adorning his neck and cheek, were unmistakably Sebastian.

He swallowed, nerves festering up his throat and threatening to make his voice come out as an embarrassingly high-pitched squeak.

"Sebastian?" he said, pausing by the chair on the opposite side of Sebastian's table, dragging a finger against a loose curl tickling his temple to stretch it behind his ear. "Sebastian Smythe?"

Sebastian's head turned towards him, looking him up and down, his eyebrows clearly furrowing behind his sunglasses. Blaine felt his stomach flip-flop towards his feet. For fifteen years, guilt had been eating at his insides, keeping him awake at night and following him around regardless of how many countries he visited and how many fans he took photos with.

Yet one look, one confused wriggle of his eyebrows, made it clear Sebastian had forgotten Blaine ever existed.

It made him question whether the only thing he'd ever been to Sebastian was a blip on a hormonal teenage boy's radar and nothing else.

"It's Blaine," he supplied when Sebastian was silent for a few beats too long, fidgeting with the collar of his shirt that felt too constricting around his neck. Surely his appearance hadn't changed that much? Surely Sebastian saw the news, caught glimpses of his star on TV or in movies? Surely he hadn't been so unimp-

"Blaine," Sebastian said, his eyebrows rising with surprise. "I didn't recognise you."

Blaine's lips pressed into an uncomfortable, unhappy line at the confirmation that yes, he had changed and no, he hadn't been important enough to remember. Now that he'd approached Sebastian, reintroduced himself in the most mortifying way possible – maybe Kurt had been right and Sebastian had just prepared to use him to prove a point – he didn't think he had the balls to tuck tail and run. It was probably ruder than abruptly roping Sebastian and The Warblers into proposing to someone he had barely begun dating again.

"Sit, sit," Sebastian said with a vague wave towards the seat on the other side of the table, withdrawing his stretched out legs to tuck his feet beneath his own. "Your thoughts are louder than Fourth of July fireworks and it's giving me a headache."

Blaine scrunched his nose in protest and pulled out the chair he'd been instructed to take, his fingers folding into his lap briefly before beginning to fidget. He watched Sebastian gazing upon the street, taking a moment to trace the definition of his jaw and the muscle in his neck. Age had matured Sebastian's expression, turned him into someone quiet and calm, introspective and content. He was the antithesis to Blaine's constant energy, his constant switching from one role to another making him no longer certain who he truly was. It was unnerving though, seeing Sebastian so still, so unaffected by his presence, the gap between them steadily increasing at all the words left unsaid. The edges of his heart singed a little further at how little Sebastian seemed to care that he was there. It left him fumbling, floundering, his status as a star with his name in lights from one coast to another reduced once more to the shy schoolboy Sebastian had so shamelessly flirted with.

"How have you been?" he said, surveying Sebastian's finished cup of coffee with a faint rim of cream around the edge, the leftover crumbs of what was possibly a croissant on a plate. He followed Sebastian's gaze across the street, as if the shopfronts opposite held all the answers to the mysteries of this new, unfamiliar, Sebastian Smythe that sat beside him.

Sebastian laughed, a hollow sort of sound, empty of the warmth he'd once infused in every look, every gesture, every word directed towards Blaine. It left him feeling chilled to the core.

"Why are you wasting time with pleasantries, Blaine?"

Blaine flinched but accepted the thinly veiled accusation for what it was – Sebastian identifying that he had more to say than merely making cursory inquiries into the other's wellbeing. He tried to remind himself he was a fully grown man, that he was approaching thirty-five with just the faintest strands of grey in some of his curls, and he wasn't going to get teary-eyed on a street in New York where any number of paparazzi could be lurking behind bushes and trees and cars and in doorways, desperate to catch a shot of him 'looking cozy' with an 'unknown male' that they could sell for a few hundred bucks. The tabloid trash that generated such baseless rumours had destroyed his marriage, playing perfectly into Kurt's paranoia that Blaine was never truly satisfied with him and had settled for familiarity rather than love. It was an agonising irony that, when their separation had exploded across every media outlet that ever existed, he was vilified and labelled as a cheater, the "gay Hollywood heartthrob" who had slept around and single-handedly destroyed "Broadway's favourite gay couple". It was a stain he was still working hard to remove, even five years – and no serious relationship – later.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning towards Sebastian, hoping to appeal to whatever sensibilities Sebastian might have developed and implore him to the point of understanding. He'd get down on his hands and knees if he needed to, beg for the forgiveness that might lessen the tenderness around his heart, anything that would finally rid him of the sick feeling in his stomach once and for all. "I'm sorry I asked you to help me propose. I'm sorry I ruined everything."

Sebastian's lips twitched, an eyebrow rising behind his glasses as he turned towards Blaine. "I told you that you were too good for him."

Blaine blinked, his mouth opening and closing a few times while a familiar smile drifted across Sebastian's face. "What do you want me to say?" he said with a faint huff, folding his arms over his chest and struggling not to pout. "That you were right?"

Sebastian hummed, low in his throat, and tilted his head towards Blaine. "If the shoe fits, you can call me Cinderella," he replied and tracked the movement of a bicycle delivery man skidding down the road.

"Fine. You were right," Blaine said, pinching the bridge of his nose as his frustration grew with this new Sebastian, one that seemed to be possessed by an unwavering serenity that Blaine refused to think he felt envious towards. "I made mistakes, Sebastian. I've made a lot of them over the years and I know that there's nothing I can do now which will make up for the foolish teenager I was then but I'm s-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. Jesus," Sebastian grouched with a dismissive flick of his fingers. "If you want to keep kissing my ass, you could at least ask me to remove my pants first and rim me properly."

Heat flooded Blaine's cheeks. He laboured over several breaths, trying – failing – not to gape. He scrubbed a hand across his cheeks, desperately trying to reduce the glowing beacon that was his face. Across the table, Sebastian snorted and shook his head.

"Still easily disarmed and reduced to a stuttering mess, I see. I'm glad some things haven't changed," Sebastian mused and Blaine's face crinkled into something between a glare and a pout. "Look Blaine, I let that all go a long time ago. You thought you were in love and you went for it, and I don't resent you for it. There's no point dragging around all these emotional ball-and-chains for things that happened half a lifetime ago."

"Yeah, but-" His sentence stopped when his phone began chiming in his pocket, an interruption he didn't want but one he had to concede to taking. He offered Sebastian an apologetic smile as he fumbled for his phone. "Sorry, I'll be right back."

Sebastian shrugged and waved him away, looking disinterested at the intrusion of someone else into a moment Blaine had waited fifteen years to have. He hesitated, almost deciding to ignore the call, before he looked down at 'JESSE' and hit the green button, jogging a few steps out of hearing distance to give him some semblance of privacy.

"You're still coming to Rachel's premiere tomorrow, right?" Jesse said, the sound of his seven-month-old daughter, Lyra, wailing in the background and making Blaine wince and hold the phone half an inch from his ear.

"Yes?" he said, covering his other ear when a truck began rumbling down the street. It was already difficult to hear Jesse over the din of Lyra screaming over something. "I already told my stylists that I was getting ready at your place so you should prepare for them to invade around four. I'll be there at three."

"Okay. Good. Just checking. Baby-brain, you know? You forget what plans were-" Jesse's sentence died as he made a hushing sound at his daughter, who sounded anything but happy. Blaine wondered if she was hungry or missing her mom.

"Lyra shrieks more than Rachel," he commented wryly and grinned when he heard Jesse's muffled laugh.

"Don't let her hear you say that."

He snorted. "She knows I love her."

"Lyra or Rachel?"

He shrugged, grin widening, as he thought of getting to hold his little goddaughter tomorrow afternoon. "Does it matter?"

Jesse laughed again and Lyra's cries stopped for a beat, two beats, before she started whimpering again and Blaine knew it was only a matter of time before she resumed her full-blown bawling. If he valued his ears, he'd get off the phone quickly.

"Hey, I have to go but I'll see you tomorrow, alright?"

"Yeah, su-"

He ended the call before Jesse could finish when Lyra's pitch began to increase and twisted his phone in his hand, shaking his head in sympathy at Jesse juggling fatherhood while Rachel prepared for the Broadway premiere of Magic In The Air, and pivoted back to Sebastian. The man was exactly where he'd left him but…he was scratching his thumbs behind the ears of a medium-sized black Labrador positioned between his legs. He could see the excited quiver of one of the dog's front paws extending in front of him wildly and wondered where the dog had come from, feeling surprised at Sebastian's obvious affection for the animal. He drew nearer without really thinking about it before his breath caught, denial pooling thick and heavy on his tongue.

"Sebastian?" Blaine said hesitantly, obtaining the other male's attention again. The fingers stilled against the glossy black coat before the dog reacted, shaking its head, nudging and poking at Sebastian's hands until he resumed petting it. The dog was too affectionate, too determined to maintain Sebastian's interest. The denial on his tongue was swallowed and dragged down his throat to pool in his stomach, like liquid lead that rooted him to the spot.

"Hey. Everything okay with your call?" Sebastian said, his voice as calm and conversational as ever as Blaine licked his lips, his heart pounding a rapid tattoo against his ribcage and in his ears, as he stared at the dog.

He couldn't stop fucking staring at the fucking dog.

"Seb, what-"

Sebastian sighed so sharply that it severed Blaine's sentence before he even knew what he was going to say. He was pretty sure his hands were shaking. There could be dozens of paparazzi hiding in his vicinity, closing in on his face where he knew tears shimmered in his eyes, when Sebastian stood and the dog immediately shifted into position beside him, tail no longer wagging, ears raised, eyes alert.

His heart shattered.

"This is Ellie," Sebastian introduced breezily, his fingers fumbling around the harness as he looked from the dog to where Blaine was almost certainly trying not to hyperventilate.

Or, Blaine realised with sickening, unbearable clarity, approximately where he was almost certainly trying not to hyperventilate.

And failing.

Desperately, miserably failing.

"But- I- S-Seb-"

"I'm still me, Blaine," Sebastian insisted, taking a step forward, the dog stepping with him, then another step, until Ellie's nose brushed against Blaine's knee and Sebastian stilled. Blaine knew he was trembling badly enough that he thought his skeleton might start coming apart inside him. Sebastian's spare hand tentatively reached for him, clearly uncertain about where it was going, before it finally settled against Blaine's bicep and squeezed gently. "Just because I can't see you anymore doesn't mean I can't hear the fear in your chest so for God's sake, breathe."

His breathing hitched as he stared up at Sebastian, at the dark sunglasses which hid so much more than he'd realised. He could see his reflection in the lenses, the glisten of tear trails on his cheeks, and felt increasingly like throwing up. Ellie snuffled at his bare shins, her wet nose tickling his ankles, before Sebastian twitched the harness and she stopped, straight-backed, calm, still, again.

"Now you see me," Sebastian murmured, approval laced around his words, as Ellie stood resolutely by his side.

"Seb, I'm-"

"I don't need your pity," Sebastian said, his shoulders stiffening, and Blaine wondered how many other people had run into Sebastian over the years, people from a lifetime ago, who had been struck dumb by what had happened to the boy with ambition for days. The five words Sebastian spoke so steadily betrayed countless conversations where he'd made it clear he was just as self-assured and curt as he'd always been as a teenager. The pressure against Blaine's arm increased but not to a level that was painful. Somehow, that felt worse. "Go, Blaine. Be free. Be happy. Don't feel guilty that you chased the illusion of love and missed what was right in front of you the whole time."

The words were as effective as a slap in the face, a reminder that Sebastian had always used his words to carve pain into others except for that one time he'd thrown an icy cold slushie and hit the wrong person. Sometimes, that incident felt like it had only been a dream, a figment of an overactive imagination, a stunt in a movie he'd shot years ago.

Blaine opened his mouth to say something, anything, that would defend himself and his decisions, or plead anew for forgiveness, but Sebastian had already let his arm go and stepped back, stepped away, and Blaine was left to stand, speechless and dumbfounded, on the sidewalk of a New York street while a man he recognised but no longer knew walked away from him.

Sebastian didn't look uncomfortable or unsteady as he walked down the street, Ellie tucked close to his side, but it still struck him with a cruel sense of irony to witness what Sebastian had become. It was a fate he'd nearly inflicted on Blaine and tears trickled down his cheeks. He was unable to comprehend it, unable to grapple with and reconcile the disjointed pieces of a boy he'd once known and the man he'd grown into.

~FIN~