A/N: So it seems this character was a popular choice for this prompt ;) Not a big surprise, but one of the main reasons I love this exercise, is seeing how we all put our own spin on it! So here's mine. Enjoy! xoxo
Prompt #19: It was hate at first sight.
Character(s): Sebastian Smythe
Words: 517
Date: December 5, 2012
He sat on the couch furthest away from Hunter's swivel chair, so that he could silently judge the new head Warbler in peace. And it wasn't what everyone else thought. It wasn't because Sebastian had been ousted or that he was jealous of Hunter. In fact, no one looking at him right now would understand the look on his face. If there was one talent Sebastian had perfected over the last year, it was his poker face.
He watched as Hunter explained his plan to the Warblers who had been summoned to their common room. Each one had been chosen by Hunter for a single purpose, to capture his prey. And in that moment, Sebastian had to close his eyes to keep from rolling them as the irony of Hunter's name was too much to handle.
So was the irony of how their first plan of action as Warbler captain was the same. And Sebastian knew, deep down if he was being honest with himself, that it was a plan already doomed for failure. He had tried and failed to separate Blaine from Kurt, he had no doubt that Hunter would fail as well. So they would have that in common, there was nothing he could do about it, but that was where the similarities ended.
Sebastian wasn't foolish enough to think that anyone else would see it that way.
They would think back to the person Sebastian was at this time last year and assume they were the same person. Sebastian understood why. He had spent far too long being somebody else. A person who's smirk he hated the first time he caught sight of it in the mirror. It hadn't even been a conscious decision, but something had changed inside him when he stepped into the halls of Dalton and it had taken almost blinding Blaine for him to realize that he did not like that person. It had taken another six months for him to accept that he didn't have to be that person. That he wasn't that person. That he had lashed out from a place of self-loathing. And now, he could look himself in the eye when he looked in the mirror, and so he knew what he saw in Hunter's eyes was nothing like his own.
Hunter went in for the kill with every single move. He lashed out because he hated the world, not because he hated himself. And Sebastian knew it would be the downfall of The Warblers. So as he sat on that couch, watching Hunter prepare to lead his beloved show choir down a doomed path, he devised his own plan to remain within the inner circle. To be the trusted lackey, to keep his friends close but his enemy closer. And he would wait patiently for the moment when he could douse the fire that Hunter was sure to start. Because if there was one thing Sebastian had learned over the last year, it was that he never wanted to hate the sight of himself again.