Title: Creeping On A Stranger
Word Count: 5,478
Summary: Seblaine Week 2014: Day 1 (Alternative Meeting). Sebastian has always had a habit of getting in the way and making a nuisance of himself. Since his little sister had gotten sick when he was eleven, he has spent years trying to gain back the attention of his parents.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Glee, FOX, Ryan Murphy or anything else related to the FOX universe.

Christmas, Sebastian decides with a glare at the calendar mocking him from the back of the door, is the worst thing to 'celebrate' when you have a family member slowly dying in hospital.

Actually, to be perfectly honest, he'd completely forgotten about it.

The length of time Lillian has been in the hospital has sharply increased the amount of nights he escapes the house, the amount of liquor he consumes, and the more reluctant he becomes to attend school.

He's not entirely sure his parents are aware of what he's doing, despite his clothing reeking of smoke from the joints that the other guys pass onto him. They rarely seem to be around and when they are, they almost never pay attention to him. They don't ask how his day was or what he learned at school or if he has any plans for the winter breaks. He's lucky if he even gets them to look at him.

Occasionally he feels a flash of hot anger burn down his spine, his fingers curling by his sides as his heart throbs in his chest because he just wants to demand why, why is he not good enough to be noticed by them? Why can't they remember they have a son as well as a daughter? Why can't they see he's struggling to live every day just as Lillian is?

He doesn't ask any of the questions though.

He's too terrified of the potential answers.

Three days before Christmas Eve, he visits Lillian in the hospital and strokes his fingers absently through her stringy flaxen hair. She's completely out of it but there'd been a moment, when he'd first touched her, that her green eyes had fluttered open and a soft "Sebby!" had been sighed from her lips behind the oxygen mask. Entranced by a pair of eyes which were almost a mirror of his own, he'd bent forward to kiss her forehead, glad that she was capable of recognising him.

By the time he'd pulled away to ask her how she was feeling, she was asleep again.

Disappointed, he'd sat in the chair and held her hand loosely. He understands she's been sick for a long time and her odds aren't the greatest. She'd gotten diagnosed with some rare heart defect after collapsing at school. The teacher had thought it was an asthma attack but in reality, it was the first of many times the electrical system around her heart had failed.

At first, specialists his mother had contacted had flown in to try correcting the problem with surgery. He'd sat in a waiting room with his parents, trying to avoid pacing like his mother but trying to avoid sitting like the stone-still statue his father had become as they waited, waited, waited for news. After four operations, the doctors had had to embarrassingly concede that they'd only done more damage and put Lillian on the transplant waiting list.

As if her condition wasn't problematic enough to fix, it turned out she'd inherited the shitty end of the blood-type stick with the ridiculously rare AB+ while he'd been more successful to obtain A+. It enabled an easier amount of blood transfusions but a transplant was incredibly hard to receive. Combined with the amount of people already on the list, many who were higher and had been waiting longer, meant that Lillian's odds of survival only got shorter and shorter.

The system sucked.

He stirs from his despondent thoughts to realise that his cheeks are damp. Quickly wiping at his eyes, he rises to kiss her forehead goodbye when it seems pretty clear she isn't going to wake again. Deep down, he wants to see Blaine. Sebastian he knows his parents will swarm all over Lillian during the festive period, attempting to keep her spirits high, while Sebastian's own take a distinct dive and he attempts to stay as far away from the hospital as he feasibly can manage without leaving the state.

He gazes at Lillian a minute longer, at the way her tiny chest rises and falls, and wishes she didn't have to endure this anymore, that none of them did.

"Love you, Lils," he whispers, escaping her room and attempting to infuse steel into his nerves as he walks down the corridor to Blaine's. It doesn't really bother him if the boy is asleep – he's watched both Lillian and Blaine sleep more than enough times now – but he itches for some sort of conversation.

"Seb!"

A conversation with a nurse distinctly doesn't count.

He turns to offer the most innocent look that he can manage, his hand poised on the doorknob and his body seconds away from entering Blaine's room and hiding for a while. A nurse that's a family friend managed to exit the adjacent room and he tries to continuously remind himself not to panic, despite also mentally cursing her entire existence.

"This isn't Lillian's room," Therese says with a frown as she disposes of some gloves and a needle into a bucket by the door.

It's as if she thinks Sebastian's stupid enough to not know which room his sister's in, which he tries not to consider deeply insulting to his intelligence.

"I'm friends with Blaine."

The lie slips out easily, perhaps a sign of how many times he's mentally rehearsed it and whispered it to himself late at night to try finding the most convincing tone if it was ever an issue. Which, he reflects, it now might be.

On the other hand, he wonders if it really is a lie. He's spoken to Blaine and the boy said he could come back the first time. A couple of days ago, he'd slipped into the room and re-explained to a groggy Blaine who he was and a little of Lillian's history for why he was at the hospital. Blaine had mumbled something about it being a sad bedtime story and did it have a happy ending?

Those sort of weird conversations were enough to constitute a friendship, right?

Therese doesn't look like she's buying it. Her arms fold across her chest, her eyebrows rising towards her hairline. "Oh really?"

He wants to yell, 'Does it even matter?' but he suspects that will get him the distinct opposite of what he wants. Blaine's drugged up comments had been the highlight of his week. He needs a bit of amusement before the Christmas season sends him into a tailspin.

"Okay, so honestly he's friends of a friend of mine who went to Blaine's middle school," Sebastian says, returning to the second part of the lie he'd formulated in his head if anyone ever pushed him to it. "We heard he got beat up pretty bad after a dance and… Well, with Lillian over there and Blaine here, it was like, how could I not look in on him and make sure he was okay?"

He flashes his most charming smile, but avoids batting his eyelashes. That's probably a bit much to do to a woman that's in her fifties. He hopes the story sounds convincing enough. He'd trawled through some online news reports from a month ago – which had been no easy feat when the screen kept playing tricks on him – to learn that there'd been a Sadie Hawkins dance at the middle school Blaine had been found at. Conveniently, the middle school was one of three in the area which was a feeder school for Sebastian's high school. Sebastian guessed from Blaine's age that he was probably in his final year of middle school and something had gone awry at the dance, but the newspaper reports had been pretty vague on those sorts of gossipy details. As long as Therese didn't know he had no friends because of his crappy attendance and therefore no one that could have possibly known Blaine in middle school, his story was rock solid, air tight, and absolutely perfect.

Therese's lips purse together and he thinks that maybe she's an even tougher nut to crack than he'd thought, but then she gives him a small wave that allows him entry. "I'm watching you, Sebastian."

"I'm too gorgeous not to watch," he says as he practically dives through the door, wondering if it's gross to flirt with someone more than three times your age just so that you can distract them from going into a room without explicit parental permission. Therese snorts behind him so he figures his diversion worked and shuts Blaine's door quietly.

A floor lamp is on in the corner, casting some faint illumination around the room. Blaine's arm isn't being held up by a traction pulley anymore. Sebastian might not be a mathematician who can measure angles very well, but he thinks his leg looks lower too. Instead of the mask that had adorned Blaine's face, there's now some tubing with a nasal cannula which suggests he's breathing with greater capability on his own. Sebastian thinks that with those sorts of improvements, Blaine could be on his way to moving to the regular paediatric ward pretty soon.

He pulls up a chair and the sound of the plastic scraping across the linoleum causes Blaine's eyes flutter open. He offers a lopsided smile, his left side still healing too much to make Blaine smile fully.

"Hi," Blaine whispers, stretching out his hand in a sign that makes Sebastian happy to be recognised. Blaine's like the polar opposite of Lillian, capable of remembering who he is, although he's not entirely sure that the story about Lillian's illness is completely remembered.

He skims his fingertips over Blaine's palm before he wraps his fingers around it, allowing his warmest smile to play on his lips. "Hi, yourself. How are you feeling?"

Blaine wrinkles his nose despite how much Sebastian knows it hurts. He's starting to think it's an automatic reaction, which subsequently makes him think Blaine is some sort of cute and bashful little schoolboy. He'd never admit it, but it's totally working for him.

Which is something he totally shouldn't be thinking about someone who's so broken in a hospital bed.

"My left side aches all the time," Blaine confesses, his voice soft because even after all this time, his throat is still roughened from the ventilator. Sebastian, thankfully, has no first-hand experience with them but he's seen how long it takes Lillian to recover her voice, particularly when it's left there for a while or an involuntary application because she's failing to breathe on her own. He guesses that maybe Blaine's healing ribs make it hard too if he can't get a decent breath behind his words.

He nods, his thumb smoothing over Blaine's knuckles in an attempt to convey his understanding and comfort. He's not used to being able to have a conversation with Lillian, to ascertain whether she understands what's happening or not. "Do you know what your injuries were?"

"Yeah," Blaine says, wincing as he rolls his head until his right cheek is resting on the pillow and he's looking more directly at Sebastian. The left side of his face still looks a bit mottled and Sebastian can see a section of scalp which has been shaved, a line of stitches and staples holding together skin which is healing. He tries not to look as horrified as he feels and focuses on Blaine's eyes. He's still left breathless by the colour of those eyes. "I'm not sleeping well."

He offers a sympathetic smile, remembering the way he'd first truly met Blaine as he struggled with something that may or may not have been a memory of the attack he went through. "Nightmares?"

Blaine bites his lip as he gives a little noise of assent, like he's embarrassed to admit it. Sebastian doesn't think Blaine has much to be ashamed about. He's pretty sure he'd never want to close his eyes again if it meant reliving being caught up in a beat down. He observes Blaine's eyes drift away, over the top of his hair to the shuttered windows. "How's your sister?"

It surprises him for a moment, because he hadn't expected Blaine to remember his sister was in here or how bad she was. He had been vague on the details – he's not sure he could ever be truly honest about them to anyone – but even though Blaine had been so drugged that he thought it was a sad bedtime story, he'd remembered the core thing: Sebastian had a sick sister.

"No better, no worse," Sebastian concedes, which is apparently about the best his family can hope for. He can't see her leaving the PICU unless she gets a new heart or…or…

He can't finish the thought. His composure falters as he shakes his head in an attempt to get rid of the thoughts and starts looking at Blaine's hand. He notices a couple of coloured leads are missing from a sticky electrical conductor pad, but he's not sure what it had been there for.

"Hey, Seb?"

"Hm?"

"What's the date?"

It's far from the question he'd expected and the surprise makes him look up with a brief wrinkle of his brow. "December 21st."

"Oh." Something shifts in Blaine's eyes, something that flickers to life before abruptly dying out. It leaves his honey-gold eyes looking huge and hurt and so atrociously sad that Sebastian wants to purchase a dopey puppy or a kitten just so that the smile comes back. He thinks Blaine's smile might be warmer than the sun. "Okay."

"Something wrong?"

"No, just…"

Blaine turns his head away as much as he can manage with the healing it's still doing. Sebastian examines him, noticing the steadiness to his chest which is at odds with the erratic jumps of the ECG. Clearly he's trying to force down an upsetting emotion.

"Hey…" He tugs at Blaine's hand, because even if they haven't shared much he still feels a weird connection to this boy. He wants to understand. He wants to reduce the hurt that seems to be permanently reflected in the depths of Blaine's eyes.

When Blaine looks back, the curve of his cheeks is shiny and his eyes glitter with unshed tears. Sebastian can't help but reach for them, softly softly softly dragging the pad of his thumb through the twin pools of salty water as his heart gets crushed in his chest.

"What's wrong?" he tries again, noticing Blaine's lower lip wobbling despite how hard the boy is biting down on it.

"I don't… I didn't want to spend Christmas here," Blaine explains, his voice as unsteady as his lip. "My parents were in yesterday and didn't say anything about the date so I just… I lost track of time and they… I doubt they'll come again now because Coop will fly in and… God, I don't want Cooper to see me like this…"

Sebastian frowns and adjusts his hold on Blaine's hand in the hopes it's more secure, more comforting, trying to link together all the things that are distressing Blaine and work out a solution. "So Cooper's…your brother?"

"Yeah… He… God…" A soft sob falls from Blaine's mouth followed by a pained whine, his hand leaving Sebastian's to touch his left side carefully. Sebastian wonders if all the broken bones will ever stop hurting. He hopes so. He doesn't like seeing anyone in agony.

"How about I give you my number?" he says, barely realising what he's said until the words are already out there. He glances at the bedside table to confirm there is, in fact, a phone by Blaine's side before he returns his gaze. "My parents will want to see Lils and I'm….not really wanting to be around for that sob-fest, so if you need someone you can call me."

"You… You'd do that?" Blaine's staring at him with enormous, shiny eyes that make him feel vaguely uncomfortable. He's never put himself out there for anyone else, certainly not without a very good reason, but Blaine's different. He's alone and he's sad and Sebastian can't just walk away from that.

"Sure," he shrugs, as if it's something he does all the time. It's not, but he said it before he could stop himself. He'll have to check the connection between his vocal cords and his brain later for a potential fault.

Blaine's hand unsteadily closes around Sebastian's again, his breathing as deep as he can manage while he calms himself down. Sebastian watches because he's not sure he's able to watch anything else. Blaine manages to be magical and mysterious wrapped into one. Every time Sebastian wants to ask a question, he ends up chickening out. He knows Blaine won't break – maybe because he's already broken – but maybe it's like his parents. Maybe he's afraid of the answer.

He writes down his number on a notepad by the phone and underlines it several times, just because he can, and a silence falls over them for several minutes.

"Seb, I…" Blaine's brow crinkles and he yawns, his eyes fluttering a couple of seconds too long. Sebastian suspects he's probably going to end up asleep soon. He's seen that expression on Lillian's face enough times. "I just… I know you explained you were here for Lillian but…why are you here for me?"

How come Blaine has the courage to ask the tough questions when Sebastian's too chickenshit to utter a sound?

Jesus Christ.

He lowers his eyes, looking awkwardly at his lap. He'll weave together a story that's partially truths and partially lies and maybe by the time he's done, Blaine will have fallen asleep.

"It's rare that the PICU gets anyone near my own age. They're usually littler kids, like Lillian," he explains, his teeth tugging at his lower lip. "I can't really explain why I thought I'd look in on you. I know it's weird and I'm just glad you didn't scream at me when you woke up. But… I mean, no one deserves to have gotten as hurt as you."

When he chances a look at Blaine, he can tell his eyelids are definitely getting heavier and harder to keep open. "You don't know I didn't deserve it," he says, the words slurring together.

It's the first time Sebastian thinks that maybe he was right about Blaine's sexuality and Blaine has some sick, twisted sense of logic that he deserved to be left for dead because Hellhole, Ohio is an intolerant asshole.

"No one deserves it," he repeats more firmly, watching Blaine's eyelids finally become too heavy to stay open. There's a faint smile on Blaine's face as the tension in his muscles relaxes, so Sebastian assumes, or hopes, his last words were heard, acknowledged, and accepted.

He sits for about ten minutes, watching the youthful vulnerability shine through his peacefully sleeping expression. He's not wrong. No one deserves to be hurt like Blaine was.

But someone as precious as Blaine especially didn't deserve it.

His parents tell him over dinner that they're going to spend the next couple of days at the hospital with Lillian and is he interested in joining them? Sebastian looks down at his chicken, which is overcooked and tastes like chalk, and politely declines.

His father sighs with disappointment, his mother shakes her head with disappointment, and Sebastian moves away from the table without eating another mouthful.

He wants the attention of his parents, but he thinks they might only ever be disappointed in his decision to protect his sanity.

Instead of visiting the hospital the next day, Sebastian meets up with Terry. Terry's basically the leader of his favourite dropkicks and he's pleased that his text from the night before has been fulfilled. He exchanges the cash he won't spend on presents for four brandy bottles, a quarter ounce and some papers and filters. He figures this is a Christmas present to himself.

It's not like his parents will give him anything anyway.

He carefully stores his stash in his closet when he gets home instead of under the bed. He's long since felt that under the bed and in the bedside table are the first places any parent would look for contraband, but he's definitely entertained the idea of purchasing a jumbo box of extra-large condoms and an enormous bottle of lube. He'd love to see their reactions as they confronted him.

The worst part is that it quickly becomes incredibly boring to be in his room alone. He has school work he could – should – do and friends he's distanced himself from the past few months that he could call and catch up with, but there's a profound disinterest in doing any of that. He flops onto the bed and closes his eyes, trying to imagine he's anywhere else but this crap town.

His parents don't speak much at dinner that night. He's not sure why. Maybe they're still disappointed he wouldn't accompany them, but honestly, he visits Lillian every other day and she's rarely conscious for more than a few minutes each time. Visiting her with his parents in tow, who probably look at her with watery eyes and mentally making bargains with some stupid God he doesn't believe in…

Please.

He declines their renewed offer to join them the following day and discards his overcooked sausages in the bin as he departs the kitchen and heads upstairs. The loneliness he feels is crushing, because it's the first Christmas since Lillian got diagnosed that she hasn't been home. There's usually festivities filled with false cheer for her benefit, a tackily decorated Christmas tree with neatly wrapped presents beneath it. Last year, he'd gotten a laptop. The year before that, he'd gotten an X-Box. The year before that, he'd gotten a mobile phone. It had been clearly explained to him that, since Lillian was sick, his parents might need to contact him in a hurry.

Annoyed that his Christmas present carried such negative connotations, he hadn't charged it for a week just to spite them.

He doesn't expect anything this year. His parents haven't had the time to go shopping since Lillian was admitted to the PICU and there's nothing Sebastian really wants except: 1) his sister to get better and 2) his parents to remember he exists in this shitty excuse for a family.

Straining his hearing for his parents to potentially come upstairs, he rolls a quick, haphazard joint and conceals it in his wallet. It's freezing outside – the snow had been steadily piling up for the past couple of weeks – but maybe if he gets high enough, he'll no longer realise he's just as cold on the inside.

He calls out that he's going to a friend's place and shuts the door a little too loudly on his way out. He doubts his parents believe him, but he knows they won't ask.

He brushes snow off the swing and sways in the dark stillness of the night. The cold scrapes icy nails down his cheeks and into his lungs every time he breathes, but he doesn't really notice it. He waits a few minutes in the park, making sure there's no one lurking around, before he frees the joint from his wallet and pulls the lighter out of his pocket.

It's an oddly alluring feeling, the heated smoke combining with the chilled air, rattling around in his chest before he exhales. Getting high is about the only thing that brings a smile to his face these days, that relaxes him enough to stop thinking about Lillian's ill-health so much. He takes a second, third, fourth hit before he figures that's probably more than he should have on his own and stubs the tip in the snow by his feet, returning the joint to his wallet. He rocks back and forward on the swing aimlessly as the tension in his muscles finally loosens enough to the extent he feels like a wet noodle and the worry doesn't sit on his chest so heavily.

His thoughts drift to considering how close it is to Christmas. Statistically, organ donations increase at Christmas because fatal accidents increase. If there's any chance that Santa or God or whoever the fuck grants magical wishes in this word wants to shine some light on Lillian, this is the time of year to be doing it. Unfortunately, statistics don't always give you what you want. It's been four years of waiting for Lillian and he wonders if his parents are right, if this is the last Christmas she has left.

Far away, the wail of a siren cuts through the silence of the night.

He can't help wondering if someone with Lillian's blood type is dying.

His jeans vibrate and chime so unexpectedly that he startles and loses his grip on the chains. He's so high that he loses his balance and topples backwards into the snow bank behind him. His long legs are still hooked over the seat of the swing and he starts giggling for a reason he can't try to explain.

The vibrating stops and he realises he'd forgotten about it. Humming a lullaby he once hummed to Lillian himself, he frees it from his pockets at about the same time as it shudders to musical life in his hands again. The number isn't one he has programmed in.

"Helloooooooo?" He probably sounds like a sick wolf howling at the moon and the thought of that is enough to make him laugh again.

"Uh… Is this Sebastian?"

He clamps his mouth shut as much as he can manage when his body isn't quite cooperating with his mental decisions. Whatever the call is about, it's not one he wants to have from this position.

He attempts to untangle himself from the swing so he can get off the snow that has seeped down the back of his jeans. At the last minute, his ankle gets hooked around the chain and he swears at it – although whether it's the chain or his ankle that is the object of his ire he's not sure – until it wriggles free and he curses again in triumph.

"Um… Look, if I'm calling at a bad time then-"

"My foot is in an argument with the chain of a swing, Blaine. I think it was a Venus flytrap in another life and wanted a human sacrifice," he explains, finally stumbling to his feet and towards the play equipment. He kicks off some snow and plants himself on the slide. Much more stable. He should have sat there first.

"What on Earth are you talking about? Are you high?"

He laughs and leans back into the curve of the slide. It feels snug and safe, despite the plastic being ice cold. "As a matter of fact…"

"Oh my God," Blaine mutters and Sebastian wonders if he's put his foot in it, if maybe with this conversation he's blowing any chance of blowing Blaine.

Whoa, what? Where the hell did that thought come from?

"I'd apologise but…" He shrugs, waving a floppy hand out in front of him like it's a gesture Blaine can see from his hospital room. "What's up?"

Blaine sighs and Sebastian can imagine the exasperated look in his eyes. Maybe the boy is having second doubts about having called. Sebastian wouldn't blame him.

"I got bored," Blaine complains before switching tack completely. "Why are you high?"

"I got bored," Sebastian parrots, snorting at himself to the point of giggles when he thinks it sounds almost exactly the same as Blaine's intonation. He should be a comedian who does impersonations of other people for-

"Sebastian."

He grunts, unwilling to allow Blaine the chance to butcher his buzz but also not wanting to hang up on the boy either. He doesn't think he'd get a second chance at a phone call. "Christmas just stinks, okay? It helps take the edge off."

"And now you probably stink."

He raises his arm to his nose and sniffs experimentally. He can smell the Tide his mother uses to wash clothes and his cologne and maybe if he sniffs hard enough, he can smell the smoke and weed. "You take the good with the bad."

He can practically hear Blaine's eyes rolling in the ensuing pause. "Do you do it regularly?"

A grin spreads over his face as he kicks back and stares at the stars above him. "Why? You interested?"

"No!" squawks Blaine before his voice softens. "No, I just… I've never seen the appeal of getting high but I guess I… It's… I can understand it. Abstractly."

Sebastian snorts and runs a cold hand over his face. He probably needs to start the trek home before he freezes to death or becomes welded to the play equipment. "Your talking is even more disjointed than mine."

"Shut up," Blaine grumbles with a faint hint of amusement in his words.

Before he can get distracted and sit in the park for too much longer, he struggles to his feet and listens to the crunch-squish of snow beneath his boots. "Blaine?"

"Hm?"

"Don't think differently of me for this, okay?"

It's an insecurity that bubbles out of him that he wouldn't dare speak aloud if he was sober. He knows it's not the smartest thing to do with his time, but he's been trying to cope with Lillian's illness in the only way he's managed to find truly helps. Now, after he's spent so many years of being overlooked by his parents, Blaine's managed to take centre stage in his world. If Blaine decides to ditch him after this, refuses to call and tells him to get out of the room when he visits…

"Seb, I…" Blaine sighs and Sebastian slows as he reaches the fence running around the park. His heart pounds in his chest, his breathing shallow as anxiety makes him tremble.

"Blaine, please…" He cringes at how he's pleading, how at this point he'd probably get down on his knees and clasp his fingers in front of his chest in order to gain forgiveness for something completely beyond his control. "I'm human and I make mistakes and decisions others don't like but…they're mine to make."

"So I either accept you get high or leave you in the gutter to continue doing it?" Blaine asks, his words so pointed that it needles through the layers of clothing covering Sebastian's chest and pierces his heart.

"I don't know," he admits quietly with a shrug and a shake of his head as he starts walking home. His buzz is definitely fading. He's left feeling like he wants to curl up in a corner of his room with one of the four bottles until he's numb, so numb that maybe he drinks through it to the point of blacking out for some blessed sleep. The silence stretches on for at least a block and Sebastian has to check his phone screen a couple of times to make sure the call hadn't disconnected.

"They're moving me out of the PICU tomorrow," Blaine says finally, suddenly, his voice so quiet Sebastian has to strain to hear him over the phone. "So you'll have to visit me in the kids ward when you come to the hospital next."

A tear trails down his cheek. It's fucking freezing, burning his skin, but he's filled with a stupid amount of relief that makes him sag against the Davies' fence for a moment.

"Yeah," he chokes out, looking at the corner of his street. He forces himself to keep walking and can see the porch light has been left on. "Yeah, I… I will."

"Thanks." Blaine sounds oddly distant but Sebastian doesn't question it. He lacks any form of courage when it comes to asking anything of the other boy. "I should probably let you go before I fall asleep on you."

"Okay." He nips his lower lip between his teeth, pausing by his letterbox. The downstairs lights are off. His parents have gone to bed. "Sleep well."

"You too," Blaine murmurs and then there's the soft click Sebastian thought he might have missed earlier.

He gazes at the dark screen of his phone for a moment before entering the house, locking the door, and creeping up the stairs. The low hum of a television filters under the narrow gap of his parents' room, indicating they're probably still awake. They don't call out a good night. They don't even check that it's him who has come home instead of a murderer preparing to slaughter them in their bed.

He strips out of his cold clothes into warm and dry sweats and a hoodie, huddling under the blankets and trembling slightly as the floaty high ends with an uncomfortable crash. It takes him a while to get to sleep as he worries over what Blaine might be thinking in regards to his habit, but eventually the fatigue catches up with him and he fades to sleep.

~TBC~