Title: Creeping On A Stranger
Word Count: 6,467
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.
Warnings/Spoilers: Brief sexual encounter between two underage, but consenting boys. A lot of subsequent angst and despair.
The walk to Dalton takes an inordinately long amount of time, more than enough for him to begin doubting his upbringing in Westerville and his knowledge of its streets. At least twice, he thinks he's walked in one big circle but he dreads turning on his phone to check a maps app and see the missed calls or messages that might pop up. He can't stop thinking about Blaine getting a nurse to contact his parents or the school. After the conversation they'd just had, he's not sure how convinced he is that Blaine is his friend, on his side. He's pretty sure if Blaine had run away from school and gotten as badly wasted as he had done, he'd be calling everyone he could to send out a search party so he can't really Blaine if he ended up doing the same.
He finally draws alongside the edge of Dalton's grand grounds, the fence that skirts around the property becoming his guide as he makes his way to the front entrance. The main gates stand open, as if awaiting his return and anticipating closing him into their iron embrace to lock him in for the rest of his days. It's almost enough for him to want to turn around and run again. Maybe this time he'll get on a bus or a train, travel to an entirely new state and start over. He's not sure how he'd do it, he's not sure he could cut ties with Lillian like that, but he's also not sure how he's meant to keep breathing when every inhalation is agony to his soul.
The corridors are quiet as he trudges through them. It's probably too early on a Saturday morning for most teenage boys to be awake. Sleep-ins were a luxury and breakfast always ran later on the weekends anyway, so the need to get up was greatly reduced. He imagines the various boys still lost in dreams as he silently creeps through the dorm corridor in an effort to avoid alerting anyone to his escape.
He's surprised – and grateful – when he discovers the door to his room is unlocked. He can only assume Clarington knew he didn't have his key and had anticipated his return, although probably earlier than this. He twists the door open and blinks at the lamp on his roommate's bedside table that is aglow, casting shadows around the room.
Clarington has a book splayed across his stomach, a pair of glasses resting on his nose. He watches the steady rise and fall of Clarington's stomach and assumes he's asleep. It's tempting to make a hell of a lot of noise or, better yet, suffocate him with a pillow, but instead he eases the door shut with the quietest of clicks and slides the lock into place.
He gathers up a fresh outfit because he knows his present clothes probably reek of stale alcohol and weed. The ritual of a long shower to erase the secrets of his nightly antics is familiar enough and he's grateful that Clarington doesn't suddenly stir awake while he's moving around.
If nothing else, the shower helps loosen the kink in his upper neck from his cramped position on Aiden's couch. He washes his hair twice in an attempt to remove the smell that might linger and scrubs himself thoroughly at least three times, wishing he could get inside his pores and rinse them out as well. No matter how hard he tries, he doesn't feel clean and when he steps out of the shower, he's not sure that he smells fresh. He feels like last night's leftovers and he's convinced he probably smells like the municipal garbage dump.
He re-enters the room and supposes he shouldn't be surprised that Clarington has stirred awake and discarded the book and glasses to his side table. His roommate now occupies his desk chair, probably because the hard wooden back is so uncomfortable that he won't return to sleep in it.
He ignores Clarington as long as humanly possible, refusing to look at him or position his body towards the other boy. He wants nothing to do with the conflicted feelings he'd had yesterday.
"I'm sorry," Clarington says finally, effectively breaking the silent standoff that had existed between them. Sebastian supposes it almost sounds genuine. "I didn't tell anyone that you were, y'know…out."
He stays turned away, as if looking towards his roommate might somehow weaken his resolve to give the silent treatment. He's not sure whether Clarington is making a double entendre or not and he has no interest in seeking clarification. The longer he can refrain from talking, the better.
"I mean, I wasn't entirely sure you left the school grounds but you were out all night so I guess I just assumed," Clarington says and Sebastian internally breathes a sigh of relief that the other connotation of 'out' isn't being used. He notices the slightest bit of unease bleeding into Clarington's tone as he continues, "You know you'd be in huge trouble if you had left school though, right?"
He's pretty sure something audibly cracks inside his body. He's doesn't know if it's from gritting his teeth so hard that his jaw snaps or if he has a fragment of bone floating through his hand with how tightly he clenches his fists, but something cracks.
So much for refraining from talking.
"And how much trouble would you be in for the shit you've pulled on me?" he yells, whirling on Clarington who looks satisfied rather than troubled. It only serves to infuriate him more that his roommate has been deliberately baiting him. "A school against bullying and you shove me against a wall. Twice. The first time you're willing to blacken my eye on sight and the second time… The second time you- you-"
He can't even say it, his rage so enormous that he wants to shatter something with his fist. Clarington's nose is looking like a really good target right now. The frenzied inferno is working its way through his veins and making his body tremble.
Clarington fills in the blanks as if it isn't a big deal. "The second time I tried to kiss you."
"You're not even bi!" Sebastian exclaims, although the argument sounds weaker than Blaine's healing bones, weaker than Lillian's breathing when she was on a ventilator, weaker than his mother trying to argue with him at Christmas.
"And you said you weren't gay," Clarington says bluntly. He finally rises from his seat, his eyes continuing to survey Sebastian carefully. It's unnerving. It makes his skin itch. He wants to scream and yell and disappear.
"I'm not gay," he repeats for the millionth time, but he's not sure who he's trying to convince anymore.
"You want to know what I noticed yesterday?" Clarington stalks around him, like he's corralling the storm of emotions back towards Sebastian, like he's edging around a cage with a lion inside that could attack at any moment. Sebastian's all too aware that his blood is pulsing in his ears. "I noticed there was a moment that you looked at my mouth and licked your lips. I think that was a moment you considered allowing yourself to take it."
Sebastian is pretty sure if Clarington gets any closer, he's going to break his neck and then peel his nose off his face.
"And then your eyes changed and you snapped and pushed me away." Clarington folds his arms over his chest, his grey t-shirt pulling tight at his broad shoulders and looking every bit the strong military brat Sebastian knows him to be. "I thought about that change in your expression all night."
Concrete fills his jaw and makes it impossible to open his mouth to speak. He's not sure what he'd say though because he has a feeling any words would just draw Clarington closer when he desperately wants them to remain distanced. He knows his roommate is smart. He knows his roommate is capable of observing things most others wouldn't see. He assumes it's something to do with the combat training that keeps Clarington alert to his opponent's vulnerabilities.
"So then I started wondering," Clarington drawls, stepping close enough that Sebastian is capable of feeling his radiating body warmth and he realises he's trapped to the spot because concrete has filled his feet too, "if you're afraid of coming out, or if you really want to get laid but won't allow it from a guy, or, and I wholeheartedly admit that this is a stretch, your heart felt like it was betraying someone else."
There's a smug grin stretched across Clarington's abnormally large mouth when he finishes, his eyebrows raised in a challenge for Sebastian to deny him. He's not sure where to begin with responding. What is he even meant to say to all of that?
"You don't know anything about me," he deflects. He tries to make himself stand taller and straighter, to look stronger, more defensive, more imposing against Clarington's attempts to get beneath his skin. He refuses to consider that it's a wasted effort because he's standing opposite someone who he knows was raised in a military academy.
"Not for lack of trying," his roommate says thoughtfully and Sebastian scowls, wondering if Clarington's 'friendliness' was really just a ploy at invading his trust all along. "So which is it? Scared, horny, in love?"
He tenses, his fingers curling by his sides. "Fuck you," he spits, wishing he could rip out Clarington's heart to check he even has one.
"If that's what you need to feel better," Clarington shrugs and it's so unexpected that it completely derails all of Sebastian's thought processes and his only reaction is to gape for several long moments.
He's still utterly incensed at his roommate's frank assessment of the complexities of his mind but every time he thinks he's got a grasp on the conversation, it flips over and changes course completely. He's usually the master of manipulating conversations and directing insults to targeted areas that will inflict maximum hurt. Somehow, Clarington's capable of doing the same, only he's doing it better. He doesn't like feeling this unbalanced in an argument. He doesn't like being upstaged by Clarington.
"What's running through that mind of yours?" Clarington asks, apparently genuinely curious and yet the small voice in the back of his head tells him that it's all an act.
Sebastian's eyebrow twitches with how unaffected his roommate seems by this entire encounter, how completely unperturbed he is by yesterday's incident. It's a battle for Sebastian to stay composed and continue holding his secrets to his chest to avoid anyone seeing them, and yet Clarington manages to look like he doesn't have anything to be afraid of exposing. Sebastian can't afford to look weak. He knows he'll get eaten alive.
There's an itch that spans across his shoulders and tingles down his chest and arms. He'd much prefer to get drunk and high again and spin out like he'd done last night into endless depths of panicking that continuing this conversation. He wants to numb everything, maybe even manage to maintain a degree of permanency to having minimalistic emotions. Living in a constant drug daze doesn't sound so bad if this is the shit he has to put up with when he's not using.
Maybe it's because there's still lingering alcohol and weed in his bloodstream that he makes one of the worst decisions of his life. Maybe it's because there are parts of him that are still too hammered to make the right call. Maybe it's because Clarington is looming close and dangerous and he's desperate for a way to turn the conversation on its head and regain control.
At the very least, he'll lie awake struggling to make sense of what he does for hours, days, weeks, months, years.
He rushes at Clarington before he's really thought through the action. He ducks away from his mouth but his hands scratch under the fabric of Clarington's shirt in search of skin. For now, he'll blame the anger for blurring the line between furious arousal and sexual arousal. Clarington steers him towards his bed and he ends up on his back. Once again, he fails to have control over a situation he'd originally intended to influence and his dislike of where he finds himself borders on hate and fear.
"So you are gay," Clarington mutters as he rucks up Sebastian's shirt without any hesitation, fingers confidently pressing into his freckled skin.
"And you're not," he challenges, his annoyance – and his curiosity – flaring when Clarington only laughs.
He sticks to what he's familiar with, even though there's a bed this time. It's fast and messy as he unbuttons his jeans and pushes Clarington's head downwards and he avoids letting himself think too much about what he's doing. His eyes squeeze shut as heat zips up his spine in time with each lick, each suck, and he writhes and moans at the blowjob which is better than the ones he'd gotten from actual (closeted) gay guys back at Westerville High.
There's no way Clarington hasn't done this before.
Clarington manages to balance rough with determined patience, all about getting him off as quickly as possible without a hell of a lot of feelings behind it. He's grateful for the lack of intimacy because he's not sure he could handle it. He wouldn't know how to feel about it and it would mess him up more than this situation probably already will. He can feel something twisting in his stomach, a cool sort of nausea, and by the time his hips are arching off the bed and he's spilling down his roommate's throat, something that feels as heavy as a boulder and as frozen as Canada in mid-winter has formed in his stomach.
He pushes Clarington away when he's softened, too overstimulated to desire more. His body is still shaking with anger but there's also a pleasurable ripple that unfurls down his spine from time to time that he quickly starts to hate.
"Here's hoping you relax after that," Clarington grumbles, fixing his jeans and shirt before he climbs off the bed.
Sebastian doesn't want to see if his roommate is hard but the sudden abandonment expands the frozen feeling in his stomach until he feels cold all over, worse than when he'd shoved away the others after they'd blown him in a stairwell or locker room or behind a building while he smoked a much-needed joint between classes. In hindsight, it was probably a wonder that he hadn't lit their hair on fire.
He wonders if the blowjob was a test for him that he passed or failed, another elaborate plan by Clarington to catch him out and hold something above him so he falls into line. He begins doubting his entirely irrational decision from the moment he's left alone in the bed and only has his thoughts for company. It's like the terror of being invisible in his nightmare all over again. It's like being left to fall apart and no one notices.
He doesn't care that Clarington is still around when he pulls the blankets up to hide his trembling body. He uses it as protection in an attempt to avoid his insecurities splintering him apart.
He refuses to leave the bed for the remainder of the day.
He hears Clarington leave a few times, maybe for meal breaks, maybe for errands, maybe to give him space.
Whenever he knows he's alone in the room, he pulls the blankets over his head and allows himself to cry into his pillow.
He only emerges on Monday because he has classes and doesn't want to end up in James' office without an excuse for his absence. A sick sense of dread has curled into his stomach as he shuffles through the corridors with his hand clutching the strap of his bag and his eyes on the floor. He feels like his face is embossed with the story of what happened on Saturday, like anyone that looks at him will see straight through his flimsy armour of a blazer and tie and be disgusted by the actions he'd willingly participated in.
In the classes that he shares with Clarington, his skin crawls. He sits at the front to avoid having to deal with his roommate possibly turning around to stare at him. He's pretty sure he's not being paranoid when he senses eyes on his back. He attempts to keep his attention on the pages in front of him but he's been so upset all day that he hasn't been able to focus or use any of the techniques that Fincher has subtly taught him to use to make the words cooperate. Even with his glasses on, he can't read a thing. The pages of his notebooks are devoid of a day's disjointed handwriting. He's deaf to any lectures his teachers give about important content which he should probably pay attention to.
In Chemistry, he gets a quiz that he doesn't even bother picking up a pen for. He gets another in Literature that he entirely ignores and spends the time cleaning and cleaning and cleaning the lenses of his glasses. He knows Mrs Fincher is watching him from her desk but he blocks it out. Instead, his thumb and index finger rub the cloth over and over into the glass and he listens to the unsteady staccato of his heart against his ribcage and tries not to throw up as a result of the sick twisting in his stomach.
It's surprisingly exhausting to shut down like this. He'd had times at Westerville Junior High and High School that maintaining the façade that he was okay and Lillian was healthy became impossible and he'd wound up in the counsellor's office. It's different here. He's not sure what people know about him, if anything, and he knows he can't buzz Terry for a stash or a meet up every night of the week with the other guys to maintain a permanent state of emotional separation. The destruction of all his usual masks and coping methods leaves him feeling more drained than usual and is probably why he doesn't even try to apply himself to classes.
By the time the final bell rings, he's glad to get rid of boys who are too distracted by their own self-interests to notice or care how he's doing. Even if someone had asked him something, he would have brushed them aside. He trusts no one in this place, from the principal all the way down to fellow freshmen. He's not even sure he trusts himself.
He topples into his bed after removing his shoes, tie and blazer. The mattress supports his heavy limbs and he quickly cocoons himself within sheets and blankets. He can feel himself trembling again, something that's returned since Saturday. He's doesn't know if it's the anxiety or the disgust or the residual effects of getting so wasted on Friday night but he's aware that using again has unlocked the urge to do so again and again and again. Thinking he didn't have options before meant he was forced into sobriety…but now he knows there's a place near the fence he can scale. He's craved the bitter burn of alcohol sliding down his throat and the acrid smoke coiling in his lungs before he released it. He's craved the ability to make it all disappear for a few hours until he forgot and nothing hurt.
The door clicks and he can hear Clarington's footsteps. He can count the measured pace to the other side of the room and knows without looking that his roommate removes his blazer first and neatly hangs it up before moving onto unknotting his tie and – there it is, sure as clockwork – the release of a pent up breath from the day followed by the clatter of his shoes as he removes them and tucks them beneath his desk. It's almost disturbing how well he knows Clarington's rituals.
It's impossible to know what his roommate does after that though because for a pretty big guy, he can be as silent as a ghost when he wants to be.
It's probably why he startles so badly when a body presses in behind him, strong arms wrapping around the excessive bedding he's surrounded himself with. Somehow being held tightly amplifies how badly he's shaking. He's torn between wanting to shove Clarington away and accept the comfort he's needed for days – even if it's from the enemy. He hasn't been able to return Blaine's texts or missed calls for two days and he hates himself for it but he's too much of a coward to do anything about it. He hasn't done much of anything since Saturday.
"It's not in my nature to apologise this much to one person," Clarington mutters somewhere near his shoulder. He shifts closer, his knees slotting into the curve of Sebastian's through all the fabric and trapping him into being the little spoon. "I thought it'd help. I was wrong."
Despite the fact he can hear more honesty in Clarington's words than ever before, he's not comforted by them. He also can't figure out his own words. He feels numb, like he's just bathed in a tub full of ice for so long that his heart doesn't feel anything except cold. His stomach is churning so badly that he wants to expel the meagre amount of food he's eaten today.
"Christ, Seb."
Clarington's fingers roughly pull the blanket from his face and the difference between the heated, recycled air covering his head and the cool air of the room makes the tears he'd been silently shedding feel uncomfortably sticky on his skin.
"Please just talk to me? I fucked up. I get that. I'm sorry." Clarington squeezes him and Sebastian starts wondering if the pieces he'd carefully glued together to survive the day might just fracture apart under the pressure of his roommate's grip. "What can I do to make it better? What can I do to take it back?"
A sob gets stuck in his throat. The worst part about how he feels is that he can't even explain why he feels like this. He doesn't understand it any better than his roommate does. He thought the waves of despair that have been crashing over him since Saturday would have abated by now but instead they've dragged him out to sea, slowly pulling him downwards, drowning him in a place that's dark and lonely and cold. Rather than giving him pleasure or relief, it's like the blowjob had unlocked an avalanche of unpleasant feelings he has absolutely no capacity to handle.
Clarington tries to hush his cries at first, then he tries to rub his hand soothingly against Sebastian's arm as he cuddles in from behind again. When it continues to fail, he draws away and Sebastian thinks he's going to be left alone to try to handle these feelings and it scares the crap out of him. His roommate might have caused it but at the moment, his roommate is all he has to hold him together as he shatters.
"Be nice to him." Clarington's voice filters into his haze. Something cool and plastic is held against his ear and his roommate presses in behind him again, probably close enough to hear every word.
"Sebastian?"
His eyes flutter closed as tears flood them. He'll punch the shit out of Clarington's face later for this.
"Seb, what's going on?"
Blaine sounds so small, so afraid, so scared, so concerned, and it just breaks his heart even more than it already was. He tries to turn his face into the pillow and dislodge the phone but it's futile when his roommate is just as stubborn and adjusts for any movement he makes, even if it means practically crawling all over him.
"Sebastian," Clarington says, encouraging the phone to flatten against his cheek when all Sebastian wants to do is break it and his roommate's hand. Not necessarily in that order.
He sniffles and curls his hands into his chest like he's seen Lillian do after she has a nightmare, when he's the strong and brave protector from the monsters in her head. He wishes he had someone he trusted to take care of him like she did.
"Please don't hate me," he whispers into the receiver, wishing Clarington was nowhere near him because it's clear he's listening when the tightness in his hold increases.
"Hate you?" Blaine sounds so confused that it just makes him want to cry more. He starts wondering if he's losing his mind, if maybe he smashed his brain so well with alcohol and weed that it's actually stopped something from working the way it's meant to. Everything feels so overwhelmingly wrong and he can't breathe because of the pain pressing down on his chest. "Is this about Friday night?"
He tries to bite down on his lower lip to stifle the sob that threatens to spill free of his mouth. His mind is in turmoil. Is this about Friday night? Is it about the almost-kiss? Is it about getting drunk and high?
No, he's pretty sure it has to do with what happened when he returned on Saturday morning.
And he has no way of knowing how to tell Blaine that when Clarington is soaking up every word.
"Because if it is, I don't hate you," Blaine continues, his words slow like he's trying to choose them carefully. It's probably because he's shooting into the dark and doesn't want to upset Sebastian further. "I might not agree with your choices but we already established they aren't mine to make. I… I just worry about you in those situations with those guys you hang out with, but I don't hate you, okay?"
A muffled whimper of pain claws at his throat and Clarington immediately tries to hush him. If Sebastian closes his eyes, he could almost pretend it's Blaine cuddled behind him. Maybe the other boy would be able to feel the detachment of his limbs from his body and witness his internal organs shifting around his body like a lava lamp and hold him together better.
"Bastian, I don't understand," Blaine pleads, his voice softening over the line and ripping at a section of Sebastian's heart because Blaine's trying so hard and Sebastian's so fucking weak that he can't even respond to the simple questions he's being asked. "I can't understand if you don't talk to me." A pause, a breath, then, "Is it Lillian?"
Without knowing it, Blaine hits on something that has been racking Sebastian with guilt for the past two days. He's barely thought of Lillian when he's been so distressed. His selfishness, his misery, has made him completely incapable of thinking about her and he's so infuriated with himself that-
"N-No," he chokes out, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to stop the swirling thoughts before they suck him into an even deeper sinkhole. "I… B, I- I'm-"
"Hey, how about you just breathe right now, okay?" In an instant, Blaine's got that whole gentle caring thing going combined with a slight edge of firmness to his tone that he needs to hear to properly pay attention to the words. "I can say I don't hate you until I'm blue in the face but I think you're too upset to hear it, so how about we just focus on breathing?"
"O-Okay…" Another bubble of hysteria pops in his chest and a sob spills from his mouth into the phone.
Blaine starts talking, explaining a breathing exercise about counting inhalations and exhalations. His voice is calm and soothing and Sebastian gets easily distracted by the intonations and inflections instead of focusing on each breath like he's meant to. Yet if he keeps his eyes closed, he can feel the warmth of Blaine's honey eyes gazing at him, feel the gentle brush of their fingers lacing together, feel the security in his arms even though one is still painfully weak. It draws him away from the multitude of things he can't focus on properly until all he has is a vision of Blaine behind his eyes and the constant comfort of his voice in Sebastian's ear.
When he attempts to stretch his curled body out, Clarington's arms loosen around him and he's no longer being squeezed to the point of exploding. He wipes away the tears with the edge of his sheet and pushes Clarington's fingers off his phone so he can hold it against his ear. He doesn't need to be babied.
"How are you?" Blaine says when he finishes his spiel about breathing in and out, allowing Sebastian enough time to think through an answer that is anything but an answer.
"Do you… Do you remember after that first call I made when I was- And I saw you and you…you asked me not to think differently about…you?" he whispers, making the reference as vague as possible because Clarington is probably still listening and he's determined to maintain as much privacy about his life and Blaine's as he can.
Blaine takes a while to respond, probably because that conversation was so many months ago, possibly because he's been so obtuse that Blaine can't even- "Wait. You mean when you already knew I was gay?" Blaine says, his voice clearly puzzled.
He tries to breathe in again but pain slices through his torso, from his heart to his stomach. Panic throbs in the box he's barely been able to contain it in and he knows it's rattling around, wanting to get free again. "Yeah… It… Would you think differently about me if I… I'm… I've had similar thoughts?"
"Sebastian…?" His name is a surprised gasp over the phone and his eyes squeeze shut as he struggles with everything he can't hold in. Clarington's body surges to surround him tightly again and he hates how grateful he feels at the comfort it offers. "Are you… Seriously?"
He chews on his lower lip and his head tilts downwards slightly against the pillow, as if Blaine's here and he can't meet his eyes. "I don't… I don't know. I mean… How am I meant to know?"
Blaine laughs lightly and he tries not to wrinkle his nose in annoyance. "What do you think? What do you feel? What attracts you? What repulses you?"
Sebastian flails helplessly for an answer to any of the questions because he's still not certain and he definitely hasn't put that much time into thinking about it. He hasn't wanted to put that much time into thinking about it. It might make it too real.
"I think I always knew," Blaine says, his voice quietening. It makes Sebastian think he's drifting towards that place of hated memories and suppressed feelings he's sensed within the other boy before and he feels bad for opening it up. "I think my brother did too and it's why he's always been pretty accepting. I just…"
Blaine pauses and Sebastian hears the deep sigh over the line. He wonders if this is a conversation they should have had face to face or if that would have been too hard for both of them.
"I remember liking this kid in first grade, okay? I remember wanting to hold his hand and I remember our moms set up playdates that Coop supervised and I remember this one time, we were all making a chocolate cake and I leaned over and kissed his cheek because it had all this icing on it from when he'd licked the bowl."
Sebastian almost wants to 'aww' at the thought of it, but something in Blaine's tone tells him not to. Something makes him suspect the cuteness in the story wasn't going to last.
"He pushed me off the step-stool and told me I was gross. Cooper scooped me up and called his mother to collect him." Something wobbles in the middle of Blaine's speech but he pushes on. "The first thing he did when his mom collected him was start telling her about what had happened and I… I can still remember the look in her eyes as she grabbed his hand and pulled him away because she wasn't going to let her son like boys."
It's probably the last thing he needed to hear. He's already terrified of homophobes. He knows what happened to Blaine at the dance. He thinks that's an enormous part of why he's retreated even further into refusing to acknowledge how he feels. He's not sure why it was Clarington blowing him that made it impossible to deny any longer.
"Anyway, it reached a point that I couldn't keep hiding it from my parents, my brother, myself, and I didn't want to keep living with this stupid fear that they'd find out first. Their disapproval would be hard enough but to find it out second-hand? The embarrassment would be awful." Blaine changes into being the cheery optimist he's seen glimpses of and he wonders how this boy has such tenacity and perseverance in a world determined to strike him down – literally.
"I don't have a story like that," he says, hesitating when he feels Clarington's hand settle on his waist. The sudden, increased closeness between them is a heavy reminder of what they did and what he wishes he could erase, but would it have changed his earth-shattering realisation after months, years, in denial? After all, Clarington's not the first guy who's gone down on him. "Maybe it's just a…another part of my teenage rebellion? Like what I do with the guys."
"Yeah, maybe it is." Blaine sounds dubious and distant, the optimism extinguished and replaced by someone who sounds quiet and hurt. He tries not to sigh when he realises he's messed up. Again. "But um… If you dream about guys having sex more than girls and guys or…find you stare at the ass of a guy more than the chest of a girl or um…you…you've ventured into porn and…prefer to watch the gay stuff and…and just…stuff like that then… Well, it… I mean it's no guarantee but it's indicative of…of what you like?"
Blaine's stuttering is ridiculously cute and there's no doubt in his mind that Blaine's blushing and probably has his eyes squeezed shut. He's pretty sure his own cheeks are warm when he realises some of what Blaine's mentioned is what he's experienced and he wonders what Blaine's dreamt about, or whose asses he's checked out, or what porn he's watched. It's not a helpful distraction from the compromising position he'd dreamed Blaine in while on Aiden's couch.
"Do you think you could come visit me soon?" Blaine asks, so hopeful it hurts.
Sebastian is reminded of how he thinks Blaine's parents rarely visit and how lonely being in the hospital must be. "I'm not sure. I can ask about this weekend though?"
"Please do. I… I have that urge to hug you again." Blaine pauses before quickly adding, "If you'll let me."
It hurts to think that Blaine mightn't want to hug him as he grapples with his sexual identity but a tiny smile flits across his lips because there's no way he would be stupid enough to turn down one of Blaine's hugs. "I'd let you," he says and the slight curl of his lips stays when he hears Blaine's breathless giggle.
"Are you going to be okay in the meantime?"
It's the question he isn't sure he has an answer for. He looks down and then across towards the wall opposite his bed. "I'll do my best."
"You know where to find me, yeah?"
"Room 4803." It's not like he hadn't checked and checked and checked again that he had the numbers in the right order to spare himself messing them up.
"I meant pick up the phone, you idiot," Blaine says, his voice laden with an unexpected amount of fondness.
He presses his lips together to avoid smiling and hopes he can get out this weekend. He'd love to see Lillian again too. He desperately needs to hug the only two people in the world who truly mean something to him.
"Look after yourself, Seb," Blaine says gently, and then the line disconnects.
He drags the phone away and holds it against his chest like Blaine's warmth might somehow flee the device and thaw his wounded soul. He wonders if he can get one for Lillian and his parents wouldn't find out, but it'd probably interfere with all her medical equipment.
"I didn't know who else to contact," Clarington explains almost nervously. He recalls how much he'd wanted to knock Clarington out before but now he doesn't know what he wants to do. Part of him is grateful that someone else took the decision from his hands to contact Blaine and that Blaine was able to soothe him. Another part of him is still furious that Clarington blew his dick which subsequently blew out the rational part of his brain.
"There isn't anyone else you could have contacted, Clarington," he mutters, feeling the cut of disappointment and abandonment open again. His words fall somewhere between the two extreme reactions he's feeling, where some of his uncertain darkness floats away because someone has heard his words. It doesn't mean he escapes the pain of his parents' neglect though.
"Noted." There's a pause before, "You're still thinking of me by my last name?"
He doesn't understand what Clarington is referring to until…oh. He shrugs, figuring that he can't call someone by their first name if they don't fall on his very limited spectrum of trustworthy people.
"Do you want me to…like, leave you alone?" Clarington asks, one arm falling away from being curled around Sebastian's waist.
A war erupts between his discomfort at being held and his anxiety of being left alone. He doesn't like the idea of Clarington being pressed against him because his roommate is the whole fucking cause of this entire mess but he doesn't think he'd trust himself much if he was left alone. He's scared of fragmenting into irreparable pieces again.
"Stay," he decides, reaching blindly for Clarington's arm and folding it across his waist. He can almost feel the surprise radiating from his roommate's body as he settles against him.
"You know if you tell anyone I'm cuddling you, I'll snap your neck, right?" Clarington says, his voice low and laced with a clear threat.
He snorts and pats his roommate's hand, glad to see that there's at least some element of vindictiveness within his roommate still alive and kicking. "Hunter, my dick was down your throat two days ago," he says sweetly. "This is the least of your worries."
Clarington simply grunts.
~TBC~