Sebastian's first remembers his mother at five years old.
Sebastian comes home crying from school. He doesn't want to talk. He throws his backpack on the floor and stomps upstairs, purposely slamming his light-up sketchers on each step for maximum volume. He buries his head in his pillow and screams and screams and screams.
It's not long before he hears his mother's hurried footsteps arrive outside his door.
She knocks and says his name. He yells for her to go away, even though he knows she won't.
The door opens softly and closes with a click. His mother's slippers brush against the soft carpet of his bedroom floor as she plants herself beside him on the bed, her hand finding the tense spot between his shoulder blades and rubbing tender circles.
His mother is not like his father. His father would demand an explanation; his father would want a written statement and formal interview.
His mother is gentle. She doesn't demand answers. She knows it's not the time. She whispers "I love you" and "it's going to be okay" and "we're going to get through this together."
Because that's the kind of person his mother is. She doesn't know the story, and she doesn't need to – she commits to her son's betterment even when the circumstances are cloudy.
It's an unconditional love that would follow him through his darkest times, times when even the most dedicated devotee would abandon him to avoid the association.
It's the kind of love you don't appreciate until it's taken away from you.
Sebastian is not an easy boy to raise.
He pushes kids on the playground. He steals toys, crayons, attention. He plays the victim when necessary. He is well-known in the counselor's office – his name is frequently spoken there. He's the kid with no boundaries; he's the kid who can't play nice; a boy only a mother could love.
At 9 years old, Sebastian finally faces real consequences.
He steals his classmate's notebook and looks at the doodles in the corner. Olivia + Remus in a drawing of a heart.
The girl, Olivia, is whining. She wants him to stop, wants him to give it back. Sebastian stands on a chair, reading out loud for the class to hear, as Olivia struggles, climbs, tries to retrieve her notebook back –
She falls and hits her head. When she sits up, there's blood coming out of her nose.
Sebastian gets picked up early from school that day.
His dad is the one to pick him up. He doesn't say anything, but Sebastian knows the look on his face well and knows that this day will not end well for him.
With every stoplight they pass, Sebastian wishes his mom were there.
She's waiting for them when they get home. Dad has already filled her in, and she's not happy either.
She asks him "what were you thinking"and "she could have been seriously hurt"and says he's "lucky that Olivia's parents were so understanding."
And then she says the words that leave a dagger inside young Sebastian's chest –
"I'm so disappointed in you."
And Sebastian sobs, because he can see it in her eyes how much she means it.
Sebastian goes to his room and he cries. He plants his face in his pillow and screams and screams and screams. His mother doesn't come to his door, and Sebastian chokes on the fear that his mother doesn't love him anymore. That he's found the exception to her forgiveness.
His parents call that dinner is ready, but Sebastian doesn't come down. He's exhausted from crying, and before he knows it, he's asleep.
When he stirs again, it's dark outside. His door is creaking open, and his mother's slippers shuffle against his soft bedroom carpet.
His bed dips as she sits down on it. His eyes are closed, but he knows that she knows he's not sleeping. He pretends anyways.
She finds the tense spot between his shoulder blades and rubs tender circles there. Her melodic voice whispers "I love you" and "it's going to be okay" and "we'll get through this together."
Security in his mother's love washes over young Sebastian again, and he cries.
12-year-old Sebastian gets picked on at school.
He's more feminine than his male peers. He wears floral patterned shirts, paints his nails, dons skinny jeans. He knows now that he likes guys – but doesn't quite want to talk about it, for fear of social and familial repercussions.
Nonetheless, people are noticing he's different. He's been shoved in a locker more than the average skinny guy at his school. The principal does nothing about it until now, when she kind of has to.
The two boys sit next to each other as they wait for their respective parents to pick them up.
His bully holds an ice pack to a black eye. Sebastian rubs his sore knuckles. He'll get a suspension, but his bully gets to come back tomorrow, or whenever he feels better.
His bully goes home first. Sebastian doesn't flinch when the boy discreetly flips him off while walking away.
Fag, he mouths as the door shuts between them.
The door Sebastian's mom just walked through.
His mom, his gentle, loving mom sees the gesture, sees the inaudible word on the boy's lips, sees her pink-clad son sitting with tears in his eyes.
His mother walks past him, tells him to stay where he is. She goes into the office. She doesn't look happy.
His mother is in there for a long time. Sometimes Sebastian thinks he can hear raised voices coming from the principal's office. When she walks back out, her face is red.
Let's go, she says, and he follows her out to the car.
They buckle in with a click and his mother starts speaking immediately.
"Whatever that boy said to you, it's not true."His mother is seething, and even though he knows the anger is not directed at him Sebastian feels intimidated. "You are perfect the way you are, okay? We love you no matter what, do you understand?"
"I like boys,"Sebastian blurts out. He doesn't think about it, and part of him wishes he could take it back because he feels like he just stripped naked in the middle of a grocery store, but he also feels like a weight is gone from his soul.
His mom's expression doesn't change. "I know," she says.
Sebastian nods, and his mother starts driving. It's not the route home, but his mother's knuckles are white against the steering wheel and Sebastian is too afraid to ask her anything. He's afraid that he's messed up again.
His mom pulls up in front of a shop, tells him to stay in the car, she'll be right back. Sebastian sits and waits.
His mom comes out with a paper bag. She opens it and without saying a word she hands him a knitted rainbow bracelet. She pulls an identical one out and immediately slides it on her wrist.
Sebastian is crying again, head in his hands, relief flooding through him at his mom's display of solidarity. He doesn't know what he'll do about the situation at school, and he can't erase the hurtful words floating in his brain, but he's comforted by the tender circles his mom rubs between his shoulder blades as her tearful voice whispers "I love you" and "it's going to be okay" and "we'll get through this together."
At age 16, Sebastian almost blinds Blaine Anderson.
In hindsight, Sebastian knows putting rock salt in that slushee was so goddamn stupid. He wasn't aiming for Kurt's face, wasn't aiming for anyone's face, but he goes home that night with the knowledge that he put someone in the hospital.
His parents are on vacation that week. He stomps up the steps to his room, his face an emotionless canvas, and he changes clothes. He can't be alone tonight. He's going to Scandals.
The bouncer recognizes him and holds out his hand, and Sebastian mindlessly pays the bill for him to get in even though he doesn't even have a driver's license yet.
He tries to let loose. He does some shots, dances with a few guys, a couple are too handsy and so he makes an excuse that he wants to change he song and he goes to the jukebox.
A McKinley jock is there. The white republican type he's surprised to even see in a gay bar to meet guys and not terrorize them, although Sebastian can easily see how he passed for older than 21.
Sebastian is pissed at himself. He full on hates himself. He hates that he can't cope with any negative emotion properly, he hates that his life revolves around sports, sex, and singing, the one activity that he truly enjoys – although he probably just royally fucked it up.
McKinley jock approaches him and makes small talk, and it takes Sebastian way too long to realize the guy is flirting. The guy who threatened to kill Hummel and looks like he belongs at the top of a beanstalk is flirting with him, high-class bitch Sebastian Smythe.
Just stay in the closet, buddy, he closes a scathing rant, giving a mocking clap on the shoulder, and Sebastian watches the light leave this guy's eyes and wonders for the second time that night why he is the way he is.
A couple of days pass, and Sebastian comes home for the weekend. When he comes in, he sees his mother, and he knows something's wrong.
She asks if he knows David Karofsky. A student at McKinley.
Sebastian places him as the boy from Scandals the night of the slushee. He doesn't tell his mom that.
"He tried to kill himself last night."
Sebastian is silent. His mom gives more details but Sebastian doesn't need them, because he remembers everything he said that night and all the terrible things he's done this week alone but this is the thing he will have to live with forever. That he pushed someone to want to die.
He's a monster.
Sebastian's backpack drops from his hands and all he can do is follow his instincts. He runs upstairs, buries his face in his pillow, and he screams.
His mom is urgent, there's genuine fear in her footsteps when they find his room and she doesn't knock before the door flies open and she's reaching for him, the words already forming on her lips.
"Don't!" He screams. He immediately feels guilty when he sees her expression but he can't stop. "You can't love me! You shouldn't love me!"
His mother is scared to death and Sebastian can see it, and he feels something inside of him like fear but worse and it scares him. His chest hurts and his face feels numb and no matter how hard he tries he can't stop hyperventilating because he made someone want to be dead and he can never forgive himself.
His mother is yelling his name, and weeks of deception and sneaking out to bars and rock-salt slushees and blackmail are pouring out of him in tears and broken narratives, and he sees Olivia + Remus in a heart on notebook paper and he smells blood and feels his knuckles sting and hears faggot faggot faggot as the world as he knows it crumbles to pieces on the soft carpet of his bedroom floor.
His mother is crying and this makes him want to shrivel up, he hates himself so much and he determines that even if his mother still loves him after this, it won't change the fact that he's a monster.
But his mother is good. His mother is better than he could ever deserve. He knows this even before her hands grip his back, the circles not as tender as he remembers, but the meaning staying the same.
His mother's voice is strained, but it's what he needs to hear. He's needed to hear it for weeks.
As his tears continue to persecute him, his mother continues her insistent crusade, "we will get through this together."
Sebastian is in a better place when his father calls him in the middle of the day.
It's been six months since regionals, and Sebastian is trying his best. He's going to counseling, he's volunteering, and although it feels demeaning as fuck at times, he wants to do it, he wants to be better.
He's waiting outside for his mother to pick him up from school. His car is in the shop currently. He has therapy in 20 minutes and he's vaguely annoyed at her tardiness.
His phone rings. It's his dad. He's in New Jersey on business, and he's not the type to call just to say hi.
Sebastian's heart drops, because something inside of him is already mourning even though he hasn't heard the words.
"Sebastian," his dad has never sounded so hurt in his entire life. "Sebastian, your mother was in an accident."
Time stands still. Sebastian closes his eyes.
"She's gone, Sebastian."
Sebastian slides down the wall behind him, his blazer scratching and bunching up against the brick wall. His dad is still talking, but all Sebastian can do repeat the words she's gone in his head and the one person who could comfort him can't do it because she's dead.
He comes back when his dad raises his voice, which is not something he does often. His dad is calm, cool, confident. He doesn't yell. Instinctually, Sebastian's brain knows to tune back in.
"I'm flying in tonight, Sebastian,"his dad is saying. "But you need to go to the hospital. They need – they need someone to identify her. I'm sorry, Sebastian."
He needs to identify his dead mom. He can't handle this.
"I'm coming in tonight,"his dad repeats. They're both crying. They both know it. "I'm coming, but you need to go to the hospital. God, Sebastian –"
His dad cuts off because Sebastian ends the call. His lunch stomps up the steps of his esophagus and finds rest on the bed of flowers next to him, as Sebastian struggles to grasp that the one person who genuinely loved him is gone forever.
Jeff gives him a ride to the hospital. The ride there is silent, but Jeff gives him sympathetic looks the entire 10 minute drive. Tears are in the blond warbler's eyes, which Sebastian finds ironic because its not his mom who just died.
Everything happens quickly when he arrives at the hospital. Jeff offers to go in with him, but Sebastian declines. He tells the front desk who he is, and he can tell they've been waiting for him because the look on the receptionist's face is one that screams oh, you poor little thing. 6 months ago, he would've wanted to punch her for that.
Someone in scrubs takes him to the second floor. They walk past a waiting room where kids are playing quietly and families sit and wait, and for a blissful moment Sebastian pretends that he's just going to visit someone alive.
They stop outside room 2015. The employee asks if he's ready and Sebastian nods, even though he feels like his intestines are splattered all over the tile floor of the hospital.
There's a figure in the bed covered in a white sheet. The air is eerie and cold, the blinds drawn. There is no TV running, no machines beeping, no flashing fluorescent lights. It hits him that there is no life in this room and he has the sudden urge to run somewhere, anywhere far away from this tomb full of death and despair.
Before he can tell the employee that he can't do this, he's not ready, the sheet is pulled back and he's looking down at someone he doesn't recognize, but instinctually knows is familiar.
Her head is almost completely bashed in. His mom's ivory skull is on display and misshapen, and he can see the nerves connecting her eyes to her brain. He can tell they've cleaned her up, but the sight is still so gruesome that his noodle legs give out and he wobbles, the employee catching him and setting him down in a chair at his dead mom's bedside.
He's shaking so bad he can barely see, and he can hear the person in front of him apologizing apologizing apologizing and saying that he just needs a confirmation and then they can leave.
Sebastian nods. "It's her." He knows it's her.
Because on that horrible corpse's wrist he sees a knitted rainbow bracelet.
Hospital staff find an empty office and set Sebastian in there with a cup of coffee and an overused apology.
He sits there for hours and waits for his dad to arrive. Staff pop in every hour or so to bring him food, refill his coffee, ask if there's anything they can do.
Sebastian stares blankly at the wall and doesn't respond other than shaking or nodding his head.
It's just after 2am when the door opens and instead of a lab coat its his dad standing there, tie undone and dress shirt rumpled.
For a second neither of them speak. They take the other in, noticing the details of their appearance that almost audibly scream my loved one just died.
His dad ekes out Sebastian's name before enveloping him in the biggest bear hug of his life, and Sebastian tries to recall the last time his father was this affectionate with him.
His father inhales deeply, taking in his son, his last remaining living family member as of less than 24 hours ago. "Let's go home," is all he says, and he starts to walk them both out the door, as if home wasn't lying motionless in room 2015.
The funeral comes and goes uneventfully. Their church does a bake sale to raise money for the expenses – The Warblers, minus Sebastian, even perform at the event. Family friends drop off meals, gift cards, and flowers.
It truly is a nice gesture, and the remaining Smythes are sure to thank everyone who helps out for their kindness and compassion.
A month goes by, and as time passes, the tragic death of Sebastian's mom slowly fades out of people's recognition and Sebastian tries to figure out what normal looks like.
He stops going home on weekends, and instead opts to stay at Dalton. He grinds through assignments instead of having family dinners and movie night with his parents. He's doing excellent in his classes – it's the only thing that can distract him from the loneliness.
He's thankful to not be the Warbler captain anymore, because half of the time, he zones out during practice. He knows his peers can see his heart isn't in it anymore, and he appreciates that they don't say anything about it.
At the end of his days, he stomps up the stairs to his dorm room, shuts the door, and cries into his pillow. There is no knock at the door, no hand between his shoulder blades, no one to tell him they love him, and no one to help him get through this.
He's never felt so alone in all his life.
Just over two months have passed since his mother's death and Sebastian is in Warbler practice and happens to look outside.
There are vultures circling overhead and Sebastian tracks the reason for their presence to a dead animal in the parking lot, an unlucky possum pancake on the asphalt.
3 months ago, this wouldn't have bothered him, but Sebastian looks at the dead vermin and suddenly he's in the cold, dead hospital room and he's staring at his mother's brains splayed across a pillow, and without a word he's stumbling into the hallway.
His stomach rolls, and although he tries to make it to a trash can, he doesn't, and greyish greenish bile squirts through his hands the dots the hallway floor as he slides to his knees, because as hard as he tries to ground himself, he's stuck in that room staring at the corpse of the person who loved him most.
He hears some commotion behind him but before he can turn to look, he's vomiting again, that horrible image still on repeat at the forefront of his brain, and Sebastian realizes that over the course of the past two months it never truly left.
He's hyperventilating, he feels that familiar tightness in his chest and he groans, unable to control himself as his brain continues to assault him again and again, and he's shaking just like he was in that hospital room and all he can hear is she's gone she's gone she's gone –
"It's going to be okay."
Sebastian gasps. He feels hands on his back, rubbing gentle circles in a clockwise motion.
Nick and Jeff are on either side of him. Both are holding him in one way or another, grounding him, keeping him in the moment.
Nick keeps whispering "it's going to be okay" over and over and even though it's not the same, it feels like he's woken up for the first time in two months.
"We'll get through this together?" It's a statement, but it comes out like a question because Sebastian has been hurting so much this year that he's not fully bought into his own words.
Jeff nods beside him. "We will," he promises, and Sebastian believes him.
Later that day, Sebastian still cries into his pillow, but it's different this time, because this is the first time in a long time where he feels like things might one day be okay.
Sebastian goes home that weekend for the first time since he returned to Dalton.
He has an awkward dinner with his dad that is spent mostly in silence, although he can see in his father's facial expression how glad he is that Sebastian is here, and he momentarily feels guilty for leaving his father all alone in an empty house.
He visits his mother's grave for the first time since the burial. He tells her about the accident, the hospital room, and the funeral. He also tells her about the Warblers, Nick and Jeff, and him and dad, and he assures her that everyone is doing okay now.
That night, Sebastian sleeps in his childhood bed, and he can almost hear the shuffle of his mother's slippers on the soft carpet of his bedroom floor, can almost feel the dip in the mattress as she would sit down next to him, can almost hear her voice whispering "I love you."
"I love you too," Sebastian mutters quietly as he lets the fond memories lull him to sleep.