A/N: Warning for mention of Klaine/Blaine.

Knocknocknocknocknocknock…

Spitfire pounding like the firing of an old school gatling gun on Sebastian's dorm room door interrupted his not too effective studying for the AP French test he had first period in the morning. Not that he really needed to study; he spoke the language like a native, but he had hoped that reviewing gerunds until his brain bled would distract him from thinking about Kurt, Blaine, and that fucked up conversation in the hallway the day before. If it had just been the usual back and forth sarcastic banter that he normally traded with most opponents, he could brush it off and move on. But the way Blaine talked, especially about Kurt, disturbed him. Blaine had gotten under his skin and wouldn't leave him be, like a sore you can't stop itching even after the wound is healed over. He knew that Kurt was a big boy who could take care of himself, but Blaine was as close to Kurt as any human could be, and because of that, Sebastian began to worry about him.

If Kurt did something that upset Blaine, would Blaine go off the deep end and hurt him?

The knocking continued relentlessly, untiring, joined by a second fist filling in the off-beats, and Sebastian knew exactly which Dalton delinquent darkened his door.

"For God's sake, Sterling!" Sebastian called out loud enough for the manic boy to hear, "just come the fuck in already!"

"Hey, Bas…" Jeff started speaking even before he opened the door, "do you still know that guy that makes fake i.d.'s? The dude that works at Kinko's?"

"Maybe," Sebastian said, not even the least bit curious. "Wait, didn't you have a guy?"

"Yeah, but it looks like he got arrested or something."

Sebastian scoffed.

Amateurs.

"Why do you need fake i.d.'s for?" Sebastian toyed with Jeff, deciding to prolong his suffering. "Are you thinking of taking Duval to a strip club or something?"

"It's not for me," Jeff said, hopping up onto the edge of Sebastian's desk. He plucked a pencil from a cup on the blotter, positioned it on his upper lip, and rolled it up towards his nose. Sebastian watched Jeff violate his pencil with a look of disgust.

"Who is it for, then?" Sebastian asked, then added, "You can keep that pencil, by the way."

"Blaine needs them," Jeff said, crossing his eyes as he tried to watch the pencil balance on his upper lip, bouncing beneath his nose while he talked. "He's taking Kurt to some bar in Lima. Sandals I think he said it was called."

Sebastian's eyebrows shot up. He turned to Jeff, fixing him with a piercing glare that he meant for Blaine.

"Scandals?" Sebastian clarified.

"No…" Jeff replied, staring off into the distance while he searched his memory for the name.

"Jeff," Sebastian said, blowing out a breath, his whole body rigid with frustration, "the name of the bar is Scandals."

"No…" Jeff said again, racking his brain. Sebastian shoved him hard off the edge of the desk. Jeff flailed to keep his balance, scowling at Sebastian for a second, but when he caught sight of the pencil still poised on his lip, he gave a silent cheer of triumph, his arms raised like goal-posts in the air.

"When did Blaine say they were going?" Sebastian pressed. He felt an urgent need to run off and find Kurt; to talk to him and maybe give him a clue that…that what? His boyfriend might be mentally unstable? That he might even be dangerous? Sebastian had to face facts. He didn't know a single person who attended Dalton who would buy that. In fact, before that little incident in the hallway, if someone had tried to convince Sebastian that Blaine wasn't 'all there', he would have laughed out loud. Dapper, a gentleman, a nice ass, a little too much into his raspberry scented hair gel and top 40 hits, but otherwise harmless.

As it turned out, maybe not so harmless.

"Uh, well, he wanted them before this weekend, and I know he's got that family dinner Sunday night, so my guess is Saturday, maybe."

Sebastian nodded his head, filing away Jeff's intel. Luckily, Jeff didn't seem to catch on to the fact that Sebastian was more interested than he originally let on.

"So, will you do it?"

Sebastian started formulating a plan. Knowing the management at Scandals it probably wouldn't stop them from getting in, but it might slow them down.

"Yeah, I'll do it, but this is between you and me, Sterling," Sebastian said, standing from his desk and backing Jeff into a corner. "Don't tell Blaine you got them from me."

"Why not?" Jeff muttered, oblivious to the fact that he was being herded, or that Sebastian was staring at him like his life depended on his discretion.

"I just don't want him to know, alright?"

"But…"

"Sterling," Sebastian said, "keep it a secret or Duval's parents find out exactly who he got mono from last semester. Dig?"

Jeff's eyes widened at the threat.

"Harsh," he said. "That's not cool, man."

"Then I think we understand each other."

"Fine. Whatever." Jeff slid down the wall sideways to get away from where Sebastian had him pinned. "So, I'll pick them up…"

"You'll get them when you get them," Sebastian said dismissively, returning to his desk and his list of a hundred French verbs. Sebastian didn't watch Jeff leave. He stared blankly at his book and waited till the squeak of Jeff's Converse sneakers died out down the hall. Then he got up from his desk and ran off to find Kurt.

Kurt stopped in the hallway, double-checking his bag for his French text book. He had a whole night of studying planned. He had to do at least as well as Sebastian on this test or he'd never hear the end of it. In fact, he had a note in his possession from the man himself telling him so. Kurt grinned, thinking of all the good-natured teasing that would follow a subpar (meaning not an A+) grade. He envisioned note after note flying beneath his door like Harry Potter's Hogwarts notices from The Sorcerer's Stone - each one written on that thick, marbled parchment paper Sebastian used, and sealed with wax - and saying pretty much the same thing:

"Dear Mr. Hummel:

You are cordially invited to suck it because I got a higher grade than you…"

Cheekily, his mind supplied the line:

"You can perform said sucking in my dorm room on Saturday night."

Holy hell! What was he thinking?

Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, you have a boyfriend!

A boyfriend who had been lukewarm about being a boyfriend as of late.

A boyfriend who couldn't be bothered to follow through with a simple request.

A boyfriend whose current idea of a romantic date was getting fake i.d.'s and going to a gay bar.

Kurt wasn't completely sure why he had agreed to go in the first place. He really didn't want to go, but sometimes it was hard to say no to Blaine. Kurt could understand Blaine wanting to go on a date after so long with so much emotional turmoil between them, but if Blaine wanted to dance with him, they could always put on some slow music in Kurt's room, dim the lights, and dance there. It would be nice – alone, without the noise, the stench of stale beer, or the occasional solicitation.

Call him silly, but the idea of bathroom sex never did appeal to Kurt. It sounded filthy, uncomfortable, and a bit demoralizing. Kurt closed his eyes for a second, thinking about an evening of slow dancing in his room, but in his mind it was Sebastian's body pressed against his, swaying back and forth to an old, melancholy love song, and not Blaine's, the spicy scent of Sebastian's cologne lingering in his nostrils (Kurt didn't know when he had set that smell to memory), Sebastian placing hidden kisses in his hair. He opened his eyes to look down into his bag, hand locked around the spine of his French text book, and in the bag's contents all he saw was Sebastian – Sebastian's journal, Sebastian's notes folded together and wrapped in gold cord, the pencil Sebastian had lent him when Kurt's went missing before their last test, his homework with Sebastian's corrections scrawled into the margin along with a few raunchy doodles and an X-rated haiku.

All roads seemed to point to Sebastian, so why wasn't Kurt taking them?

Kurt folded the flap down over his bag and took a step, but a strong hand grabbed his arm and dragged him into a nearby room.

Kurt didn't even need to look up into the smirking boy's face to know who would manhandle him that way. Except when he did look, the boy wasn't smirking.

The boy looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Seriously," Kurt muttered, fixing his jacket, checking to make sure the fabric hadn't torn, "is this going to turn into a thing with you?"

"I needed to talk to you," Sebastian said, "in private."

"Well, you could have said something like, 'Kurt, can I talk to you in private?'"

"I heard that Blaine is taking you to Scandals."

Kurt stopped fussing over his jacket and looked Sebastian in the face.

"Yeah. It's kind of like a date, I guess. Why?"

Sebastian sighed, taking Kurt's hands and holding them. It was a painful indulgence, but it was the only one he would allow himself to have.

"You know why," Sebastian said, a simple statement that took all of his strength to say and left him emptier since he had already guessed what Kurt's response would be.

Kurt sighed.

"Sebastian, I have to at least give him the chance to make this up to me. He is my boyfriend."

Sebastian hedged over a few words, statements, declarations, his mouth hovering around sentiments and then swallowing them back.

"Do you still love him?" he asked finally. It sounded a lot better than what he was really thinking. Don't I even have a chance?

"I…" Kurt's knee jerk reaction was to say yes, of course yes, I love him, but when the time came, the words refused to leave his mouth. He did love Blaine, but it didn't seem the same anymore. Even if he would always love Blaine, he had seriously started to consider whether or not he and Blaine made sense anymore. It wasn't something he wanted to admit out loud, not yet, and not to Sebastian. There was no need to give Sebastian hope where they might not be any.

"I…I know what you're getting at, Sebastian," Kurt said sympathetically, "I do. And I'm thinking about it. I promise."

Sebastian let go of Kurt's hands and stepped back, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at his black Oxfords against the maple-washed hardwood floor.

"Sebastian, I'm still getting used to the idea that you like me," Kurt argued, "and I don't know, but I feel like I need to give him a shot."

Sebastian's pride ached. He knew from the beginning that this was how the conversation would probably go, but that didn't mean he hadn't entertained the fantasy of Kurt denouncing Blaine completely and falling into his arms. Regardless, there was another pressing matter at stake, and Sebastian couldn't let Kurt leave until he warned him.

"Kurt, there's something I need to tell you," he started, "about Blaine." He rolled his own eyes at how trite and lame that sounded, but he couldn't think of any other straightforward way to broach the subject.

"What about Blaine?" Kurt's brow knit in the center and he crossed his arms, stepping backward to put some space between them. Sebastian didn't know if Kurt was preparing to defend Blaine blindly in favor of listening to what he had to say. He hoped that he knew Kurt better, that Kurt would have more sense than that.

"Do you think…" Sebastian started and stopped, thinking the whole conversation through in his head before he started again, "…have you ever…when Blaine gets…angry…ERRR!"

"Sebastian…" Kurt gazed up into his eyes with a look of honest confusion, "I don't understand what you're trying to…"

Sebastian gave up. Even with all his good intentions, knowing that he was right, there was no way for him to win.

"Just…be careful," Sebastian said in exasperation. "Be careful around your boyfriend." The words stung Sebastian's mouth, and he longed to kiss Kurt and soothe the bite, but he didn't. He wasn't lying when he said he didn't want to turn Kurt into a cheater.

"I will," Kurt said with a smile. He stepped up to Sebastian and put a hand on his arm. Kurt wanted to hold Sebastian, to feel his body against him, but he couldn't be that cruel. This small, friendly gesture was all he had right now to give. Sebastian sucked in a quick breath at the feel of Kurt resting his hand on his arm. He wanted to hold onto that feeling in case he never got it again.

Kurt walked past Sebastian and out the door, heading back to his dorm room and the long night of studying ahead of him.

Sebastian exhaled, balling his hands into fists and squeezing them until his hands shook. 'Stupid, stupid, cowardly, stupid!' he chanted in his head as his fingernails pressed into his palms and left crescent moon marks in his skin. He had his chance and he blew it. What was he thinking? Sebastian sank down into a heavy leather armchair, burying his head in his hands. He had a few days. Maybe he could still turn things around.

Except that in the end he didn't have those days. Blaine glued himself to Kurt's side and never left. He walked Kurt to and from every class, they ate all their meals together, they studied late into the night. At one point, Sebastian went for broke and slipped a note beneath Kurt's door. He figured Kurt would see it and intercept it, Blaine or no Blaine, but Kurt must have been in the bathroom because an hour later the note made it's way back underneath Sebastian's door, unopened and unread, with a message scrawled across the outside: Good try, but no more of that, Sebastian. – B

Sebastian barely ate; he didn't sleep. Before Kurt went to Scandals with Blaine, before whatever Blaine intended on happening…happened, there were some things he needed Kurt to know.

His only chance came about fifteen minutes before Kurt and Blaine were set to leave. Sebastian watched Blaine walk out to the parking lot to get his i.d.'s from Jeff. Sebastian knew exactly when this would go down because he had asked Jeff to call Blaine out into the parking lot to hand them off. He needed to get Blaine out of the dorms if he was going to have any chance of talking to Kurt alone. Once he figured Blaine was far enough away, Sebastian raced to Kurt's room. His heart traveled steadily up his chest the whole way there so that by the time he knocked on the door he could feel it pounding in his throat.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," he heard Kurt sing out, though not in the chipper, upbeat way he usually sounded. It broke Sebastian's heart that Kurt sounded nervous. It broke more to think that maybe, just maybe, Sebastian was the reason why he sounded that way. Kurt turned the doorknob. Sebastian saw it swing open and he didn't wait. He pushed himself inside and closed it behind him, turning the lock so they wouldn't be disturbed if Dapper Dan came back earlier than expected.

"Sebastian! What the…" Kurt stumbled backward as Sebastian led him, stopping once his back came in contact with the wall. Sebastian boxed him in, one hand leaning against the wall on each side of his head. Kurt felt Sebastian, even though he didn't lean the weight of his body against him. Sebastian's breath washed over his skin, warm and chill all at once, smelling slightly of peppermint and coffee. His body trembled from being so close, and Kurt found it was contagious, his own body shivering in response.

"Y-you said you wouldn't push yourself on me," Kurt stuttered, his words rushing out to reach Sebastian when, in this moment, it seemed that Sebastian might cross another line. His lips hovered so close, his eyes burning the way they always did when he got Kurt alone - in a way that filled Kurt with so much excitement that he almost crossed the line himself. In these seconds between decision and indecision, Sebastian seemed so dangerous. He was a head taller than Kurt, faster and stronger - Kurt didn't have to see him dominate the field during lacrosse practice to know for sure (though admittedly he had peeked once or twice).

Kurt wasn't afraid.

A little part of him, a new and unexplored part of him, wanted it.

"I'm not pushing myself on you." Sebastian's voice, breathless and devilishly sexy, sent Kurt's imagination whirling again, picturing Sebastian lying beside him, panting, spent, quivering lips devouring sweaty skin. Kurt swallowed and wished it away. It made keeping himself grounded so much harder.

"I just have something I need to say, and I need you to hear me."

Kurt nodded, his head banging lightly against the wall as he pressed himself further against it.

"Okay," Kurt squeaked.

"Okay," Sebastian repeated, using that word as his jumping off point, hoping he'd land on his feet when he finished. "Kurt, I fell for you the first moment I saw you…"

Kurt heard himself gasp, even though the choked sound seemed overly dramatic and cliché. He couldn't help himself. He remembered that first day in the Lima Bean, the look that he interpreted as derision in Sebastian's eyes, the way his lips formed a perfect 'o' of surprise when he reached out a hand to shake his, the way his eyes continuously flicked back and forth between his face and Blaine's, as if in saying, "You have got to be kidding. There's no way this gorgeous guy is in love with you, lady face".

"…but I couldn't afford to feel that way. I couldn't afford to want you that way, but I didn't want Blaine to have you, either. So I tried to push you away and I tried to split you guys apart. That's why I went after Blaine. I thought I could kill two birds with one stone."

Kurt stared up at Sebastian with morbid curiosity, his face adrift somewhere between amazement and disgust at the confession he heard. It made sense in a bizarre, twisted way. The fact that Sebastian's mind worked so sinisterly that that was the conclusion he came up with astounded Kurt. He would have shoved him away. He was fully prepared to tell him to leave and never come back if Sebastian hadn't leaned in closer and whispered in a voice on the verge of shattering, "Please, please, please believe me when I say I am so sorry for valuing my own asinine stupidity over you…over what's in your heart. I'd give anything to go back and change it all. I swear to God I would."

Sebastian pushed off the wall and stormed out of the room, leaving a bewildered and bereft Kurt standing with his eyes open wide and his mouth ridiculously agape to wonder what exactly he was supposed to do now.