Ugh, this chapter took forever! I've been wrestling with for two days and I'm still not happy with how it turned out. I apologise that it isn't up to the standard of the previous ones, but it isn't going to get any better. Sorry.

Also warning for some graphic language further along.

Chapter 6: How It Begins

The next time Sebastian woke up he remembered why he had Hunter's arms around him. He could hear the other boy breathing deeply behind him and realised he was still asleep. He didn't want to disturb the one person who had actually looked out for him so he just lay there thinking for a while. It's all my fault. If it weren't for me Hunter wouldn't be worrying about me, he wouldn't be doing this and I wouldn't be in this mess. It's all because of me.

As he was sinking further and further into despair he felt the arms around him tighten slightly. Hunter leaned over his shoulder, and looked a bit worried when he saw Sebastian was awake. 'I didn't wake you, did I?'

'No I was already awake.' Sebastian tried to twist around so he could look at Hunter but gave up when he felt pain shoot across his ribs. He lay back down with a hiss, closing his eyes tightly and waiting for it to pass.

'What's wrong?'

'N- Nothing' he said through clenched teeth. 'Just... Just give me a sec, yeah?'

As the pain slowly subsided Sebastian opened his eyes to find Hunter staring at him, a concerned look on his face. 'Did- Christ, how do I say this? Did he hurt you?'

Sebastian opened his mouth to answer but nothing came out. What? I thought he knew. No, don't make me explain this, I can't handle that. He said he understood! Images flashed across his mind, things that he never wanted to think about again. The look on that guy's face when he said he wasn't giving up. The smell of his breath when he leaned in close. His thoughts were probably visible on his face, because the next instant Hunter was gushing out apologies.

'No, I didn't mean like that. Shit, sorry, I didn't mean to remind you. Shit. Seb, I'm sorry, please don't start panicking. It's alright, you're safe here.'

The feel of that hand pressed against his back, holding him in place. That other hand reaching around and groping him as filth was being whispered into his ear. The shock as he felt that first punch to his gut, realising that it wasn't over yet.

'Seb? Sebastian? Come on, snap out of it. Nobody's going to hurt you. I just need you to calm down for a minute.'

Sebastian hadn't noticed that he was now curled up into a ball on the bed, muttering again. 'Please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt me.' But once he did he shut his mouth with a click and tried to relax. He forced himself to focus on the sound of Hunter's voice, the feel of the soft mattress beneath him and slowly breathing in and out. But after letting those thoughts back into his mind the feeling of being unclean returned. He started to get up, ignoring the pain in his abdomen. 'I need a shower.' He said quietly, not looking at Hunter. He grabbed the first clothes he could find in his closet and hobbled into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.

Way to go Hunt. Send him into a panic-attack, why not?

Hunter stared at the door from where he was still lying on the bed, not quite sure of what exactly had just happened. The sound of water running pulled him out of his reverie and he got up, a bit stiff from lying on his side all night. He checked his watch and saw that it was almost lunch time. Well there go my plans for today. He immediately chastised himself for thinking like that. His best friend had just gone through something terrible, clearly needed his help, and he was thinking about getting behind on schoolwork?

A slightly more pressing matter claimed his attention just then and he got up and crossed the hall to Nick and Jeff's room. He knocked on the door and waited about two seconds before going in. He found both of them behind their desks, Nick halfway out of his seat to answer the door. 'Sorry guys, I really need the bathroom and Seb's locked himself in ours again.' With that he rushed across the room and practically slammed the door behind him in his haste.

Emerging a few minutes later he saw that both boys had returned to their studying. 'Sorry about that, but he locked the door and I'm pretty sure that me trying to barge in there right now wouldn't have the best effect.'

'It's fine, we understand. Jeff and I were just wondering if we should come check up on you, seeing as you're both such early birds and it's almost lunch.'

'Yeah, last night seems to have exhausted us both.' Hunter sighed. They all stared around the room for a bit, thinking back to the events of the previous night. Hunter still couldn't believe someone could actually do that to their own flesh and blood.

Nick recovered first, 'Look we still need to find out if he can actually handle people coming near him. It won't help him if he freaks out at Warblers practise tomorrow.'

'Right. What about this? I'll take him down for lunch in a few minutes or something, we'll sit by ourselves and then you come see if he'll let you sit with us.' Seeing the looks on the others' faces he added, 'Yes I know it's lame but it's the only thing I can think of that if it does freak him out, we'll all be around to handle it without him having a giant audience.'

'Okay, I guess we've got a plan.' Jeff said, glancing at Nick.

'I don't suppose there are any other options. At least, I can't think of any.'

Glad they were cooperating, Hunter said, 'See you in a bit then, I'll go check if he's out of the shower yet.'

When he walked back into the room he shared with Sebastian he noticed that he couldn't hear any water running, but when he checked the door it was still locked. Stop freaking out, he's probably still getting dressed or something. But just to be sure he knocked and tentatively asked, 'Seb? Are you okay in there?'

Sebastian gave a start when he heard Hunter's voice coming from the other side of the door.

He had been staring at the dark bruises on his chest and abdomen and his voice was a bit shaky as he answered. 'Yes, I'm fine. I'll be out in a bit.' Getting dressed as fast as he could while trying to avoid any painful movements wasn't particularly easy, but a few minutes later he unlocked the door to find Hunter sitting in his desk chair, clearly waiting for him.

'I'm sorry if you were waiting to get in there, I didn't mean to take so long.'

'It's fine. I'll just be a few minutes and then we can go down to lunch, yeah?' Sebastian watched as Hunter quickly brushed his teeth and ran a comb through his hair.

The walk down to the cafeteria was awkward to say the least. Sebastian knew Hunter would want to talk about things, but he also knew Hunter would never make him do that where someone else might overhear. And he wasn't even sure if he was ready to talk about that yet. He wanted to shove it into a dark corner of his mind and never have to think about it again. He was surprised when he saw Hunter sit down in the chair next to the one he was holding -if there was a choice Hunter usually sat at the opposite side- but he didn't say anything of it. There's probably a very rational explanation for it, stop freaking out! Sitting down with a wince, he started to pick at the food on his plate.

They spent the first few minutes of their meal in the same awkward silence before Hunter cleared his throat, 'So, any ideas for Regionals? We'll have to have something mind-blowing lined up.'

Sebastian was glad Hunter went for such an easy topic, now he could just go along with whatever the captain was saying without actually having to think about too much.

It wasn't long before Sebastian realised that Hunter wasn't really paying much attention to the conversation either. He was looking in the direction of the Nick and Jeff, who were slowly but surely making their way over to them. Okay, calm down. You talk to them all the time, they're not going to know anything's wrong if you don't act out of the ordinary. But what was ordinary now? The old, sarcastic and snarky Sebastian or the Sebastian of the past few weeks, who did everything he could to blend into the crowd and not be noticed? He didn't know how to react and before he knew it they were at the table, talking to him.

'Uh... Sebastian? Are you okay dude?' Nick was peering at him, a worried look in his eyes.

'Huh? Yeah, of course I am, why wouldn't I be?'

'Well you kind of zoned out for a bit. You sure there's nothing wrong?'

'I already said there wasn't, not that I get why it would be any of your business.' Sebastian said in a clipped tone.

'Hey calm down, I was just asking a question. Relax, I won't do it again.' Nick exchanged glances with Jeff and Hunter before sitting down across from him and next to Jeff.

Sebastian sighed. He knew he was out of line. Nick didn't know what was going on, he couldn't help it if his questions made Sebastian think about things he'd rather not. 'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap at you. I'm just a bit stressed.' He returned to his lunch, hoping Nick would drop the subject. No such luck, however.

'It's fine, I get it. Everyone's stressed about Regional's and stuff coming up. But if you ever need to, you know, talk or whatever, me and Jeff are just across the hall. Drop in whenever you like.'

Sebastian looked up, surprised at how calmly Nick seemed to be taking his outburst. 'Yeah, sure, whatever.' He turned back to his food. He doesn't know, does he? You can't read it off of my face that- Sebastian cut off that line of thought before it went anywhere dangerous. He observed Jeff and Hunter out of the corner of his eye, talking about football, completely absorbed in their own conversation. No, Jeff doesn't look like he suspects anything. It's just Nick trying to be nice. They don't know what kind of a push-over I am. Because, if you looked at it rationally, he was a push-over. He'd let his father take over his life, and when he'd tried to push back, that had happened. And now he was letting Hunter decide what they were doing and try to be all helpful so Sebastian could continue to wallow in his own self-pity. Christ, I'm pathetic. What am I even still doing here? I'd probably do them all a favour if I wasn't around. Sinking further and further into his own personal bubble of despair, he didn't notice the others at the table throw him worried looks from time to time.

After a while he just couldn't take it anymore. Standing up with a hasty, 'I'll see you guys later.' he rushed out of the cafeteria.

'Well that went smoothly.'

Hunter pulled his gaze away from the door Sebastian had just disappeared through and looked at Jeff. 'If that was supposed to be sarcasm, you failed miserably.'

'No, seriously, look at it from this point. He let us sit with him, he kind of had a conversation with Nick and he did actually eat something. I'd say that's progress compared to what you said he was like last night or this morning.'

Hunter considered what Jeff was saying. He'd been keeping an eye on Sebastian throughout the meal and he had to admit that, to an outsider, Sebastian probably just looked a bit stressed or tired. But he had also seen him flinch subconsciously whenever Nick or Jeff reached over to grab something from his part of the table, or how he never looked anyone in the eye, or how he kept shifting around in his seat. He shared his concerns with the other two.

Nick seemed to take offence at the last one, however. 'Well of course he kept shifting around. If you'd had that done to you, you wouldn't be sitting comfortable either, I can promise you that.'

'Yeah okay, that was stupid of me, but what about the rest? He's got to be losing it and I don't know how to help with this.'

They were quiet for a long time, finishing their meals. They had walked through two corridors and were on their way outside before someone spoke up.

'What if he doesn't want your help? I'm not saying we should abandon him, but maybe we should just back off for a bit, let him try to settle things in his own mind before we start drowning him in affection.'

'Drown him in affection?' Hunter hissed, trying to keep his voice down, it wouldn't be helpful if the entire student population found out about this. 'For fuck's sake Nick, the guy's just been raped! He's had someone else's dick shoved up his ass, been beaten up and then tossed aside like a piece of meat! I don't know about you, but if it were me I could use some affection at that point.'

'I'm not saying he doesn't need to be looked after, but it isn't going to help him if you try to make him adjust before he's ready for it. Let him try to process what's happened for himself and then give him what he needs. You're only going to make things worse if you don't know what exactly he wants from you.'

Hunter opened his mouth to retaliate, but Jeff beat him to it. 'I think what Nick's trying to say is, let him come to you with his problems. Show him you'll be there for him no matter what, but don't try to make him talk to you. He'll do that when he's ready for it and you can't know when that's going to be, so just don't try to push it. Right Nick?'

'Exactly.'

Hunter sighed for what felt like the millionth time that day. 'Well if you put it like that. So, I just sit there and do nothing? Doesn't sound very helpful.'

'It probably isn't,' Jeff pointed out, 'but it's the only thing we can do that isn't forcing him into anything and I'm pretty sure he's had enough of that to last a lifetime.'

'When did you become so observant?' Nick asked his boyfriend with a smile.

'I have my moments.' Jeff grinned back at him, leaning in for a small kiss.

'Well as adorable as you two are, I'm going to go start that essay I should've been doing this morning before disaster struck.' Hunter left with a grin and headed inside again, hoping Sebastian was in their room so at least he'd know he wasn't getting into trouble somewhere.

Sebastian wasn't in the room, but he wasn't getting into trouble either.

He was wandering the grounds of Dalton, lost in thought. He'd thought about going back to the dorm, but the idea of being stuck in that room all day repelled him. Yes, his father could be watching him, but after the previous night, how could it possibly get any worse?

He walked for hours, trying to digest everything, but the only conclusion he could come up with was that it was all his fault. It was his fault his father was treating him like this, if he weren't gay it wouldn't be happening. It was his fault Hunter was getting behind on his studies by looking out for him -he'd noticed the mountain of homework sitting on the other boy's desk and he knew he usually spent his weekend catching up- if he wasn't so pathetic that wouldn't be happening either. It was all his fault and there wasn't anything he could do about it. He couldn't stop being gay, so his father wasn't going to stop. And if he didn't stop there was no chance that Sebastian would get over it and let Hunter get back to his own life. In the end he just gave up and started to head back towards the dorm building, not noticing he was being watched from a short distance.

AN: So, what do you guys think? Was it worth all the struggle or should I just give up now? ;)

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