Title: Creeping On A Stranger
Word Count: 7,887
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: Nothing more than usual, although a fair bit of Hunter's backstory in this chapter.
Hunter practically drags Sebastian out of bed the following day to enjoy the sparkly new week. He's anything but grateful as he gets bundled into the bathroom and washes himself clean beneath water that stopped feeling purifying ages ago. It's still difficult to dislodge his days of wallowing in the mess of his thoughts after looking comatose. What if it hadn't been Hunter that found him but his parents? What if it had been Lillian? He feels…scared of the person he's become, scared of the desperate need he feels demanding him to go to his desk drawer and drink through the bottles he's hidden there.
As much as he resents Hunter's hovering, he knows he'd be in terrible shape without him – and probably far more reckless with his decisions.
Hunter sits with him at breakfast but they don't trade conversation. They barely exchange looks. Hunter has his nose in another book and mechanically raises cereal to his mouth. He watches with faint amusement as the cereal grows increasingly soggier because his roommate gets distracted by the book. Over Hunter's shoulder, Sebastian can see Wes sitting amongst the band of people he regularly sits with who Sebastian now supposes must be the Warblers.
He notices they don't stare at him the way he expects them to. Hunter glances at him occasionally, perhaps gauging that he's not going to dart away and disappear, and he knows Wes has thrown more than a few curious and interested faces towards them, but mostly he's been left well enough alone.
It's so unexpected that he's not sure how to feel.
At public school, he'd have nosy people he hadn't spoken to in months come up to him with questions. He'd attempt to deflect them and usually end up with his books getting tossed down corridors and maybe a punch in the gut as a reminder of his lowly place on the social hierarchy. Through careful engineering or haphazard design, he'd been ostracised and accepted his role as the school freak and loner. He'd lower his head to avoid engaging with the stares of the people around him. He'd try not to flinch when he'd receive kicks to the shin by people passing by when he sat by himself on the grass. He'd find those two sophomores and lose himself for a few minutes in wet heat in an attempt to forget, an attempt to feel like someone acknowledged his existence.
At Dalton, he doesn't really get looked at any differently than before. Maybe a few people look between Hunter and him but he suspects Hunter glares at anyone who examines them too closely. He knows Hunter and Wes keep eyes on him but that's nothing unusual. No one kicks him or punches him, no one asks questions about why he's been absent for a week, no one threatens to bail him up. No one blows him either, but it's a sacrifice he's willing to make.
He realises that returning to classes is a little like when he first began at Dalton. He's suspicious again of everyone around him and attempts to avoid physical contact as much as possible. There's this alien part of him that feels like anything he touch will turn into a disaster and he doesn't want that burden, that responsibility, that sense of failure, to cripple him more than it already does. He rarely makes eye contact with anyone in the corridors so they don't get the wrong idea and ask him anything or hit him. He struggles with the immense workload of catching up along with the content he doesn't understand, but he doesn't dare ask anyone near him or the teachers for help and admit he's a failure.
In other ways, returning to classes is nothing like when he first began at Dalton. Whatever it is that Hunter has become, Sebastian realises he's trailing in Hunter's shadow a lot of the time as he avoids other people. Hunter is some sort of protector or guardian, shepherding him to and from classes with minimal fuss about how Sebastian docile is. It's not usually in Sebastian's nature to be like this – and he refuses to think he's shut down emotionally to the same extent as when he'd huddled in bed – but he feels like he's been ripped from safety and thus incredibly vulnerable. He'd never admit it, not even under the threat of torture, but he thinks maybe Hunter has picked up on it which is why he's being granted a bodyguard that allows him to move safely around.
Sebastian trudges through the week with Hunter by his side. In the afternoons, they quietly work together on completing work. Hunter never shows any frustration that Sebastian is ridiculously behind and Sebastian can't help wondering why Hunter is so patient. Is it the military training? Is Hunter a born-again saint? He's never entirely sure what to think. Late at night, he ponders the past months living with Hunter and begins to piece together that Hunter often compares his father to Sebastian's, but he's never talked about his mother. Does she still exist? Does Hunter have siblings? His roommate has seen him at his lowest point several times but he knows scant details in return.
He's not sure how to feel about that.
Each day, Blaine calls. Sometimes they talk about light things, like movies they want to see in the summer – Sebastian idly wonders if they could go together but he doesn't dare make presumptions and ask – and other times it's about Blaine attempting to walk five steps unaided. On Wednesday, Blaine informs him that Therese had stopped by with news that Lillian was showing consistent signs of improvement. It makes sleeping on Wednesday night a little easier and getting him out of bed on Thursday a little less troublesome for Hunter. On Friday, Blaine asks how he's doing.
How he's really doing.
"I feel really lost," he admits, fidgeting with the edge of his blanket as he gazes across the room. Hunter is at Warbler rehearsals or something equally disinteresting to Sebastian to keep track of. Mostly he just revels in having some free space without his roommate-turned-babysitter. He almost feels like having a drink, just for the sake of it, just because he's alone, so he clings to his phone conversation with Blaine as a distraction.
"With how you feel?"
"Yeah…" He sighs and tucks the phone closer to his ear, sucking his lower lip between his teeth for a moment. "I… I mean, I started thinking about my parents and…how my father was last week… I asked the principal about whether I could avoid returning home and he seemed okay with that idea and so there are alternatives…"
He can feel the agony and despair wash over him again, the reminder that his parents abandoned him and their interest in his welfare and wellbeing. The feelings are cold and prickly, settling uncomfortably in the centre of his stomach.
Blaine's pause stretches on, perhaps while he digests the words that have been turning over in Sebastian's head since his conversation with James almost a week ago. "If you stay at school, are you given leave to go whenever you want?"
Sebastian shrugs, even though Blaine can't actually see it. "I'm honestly not sure but…I think it'd be pretty unfair to keep you here all the time considering it's our holidays, you know?"
Blaine hums in acknowledgement before going quiet again. "You don't have anywhere else you could go?"
Sebastian snuggles under the blankets, using them as a shield from his emotions. It's definitely starting to get too warm to hide in his bed all the time but he doesn't have anywhere else that he can hide in, that feels safe and secure from other people seeing him disintegrating.
"Seb?"
He releases a quiet sigh and lets his lower lip slide free of his teeth. "Therese offered me a place to go if I needed it for an escape," he says, hesitation heavy in his words. He's avoided talking about any of this with Hunter the past week because saying it out loud makes it real. He knows he's never had that problem with Blaine before because there's a deeper level of trust between them but…it's still painful to acknowledge that he's not welcome in his own home anymore. "I'm not sure it extended for the entirety of summer because that would be a pretty big imposition but…I mean, I could go home and stay with-"
"You can't go home, Sebastian," Blaine interrupts and Sebastian's eyes shutter closed at the tears which bubble to the surface. "I mean, you can't be expected to go back there. I saw what your parents are like and I… I want you to be…safe and happy, you know? If you go there, then…then would your summer be like last year?"
Sebastian can remember summer last year. Well, no, that's not entirely true. He can remember parts of it. There were definitely a few missing weeks when Lillian had a health scare and he'd hit the bottle harder and gotten blitzed for days on end. He's pretty sure there were at least three days he didn't go home because he was passed out in a park, but he doesn't have many facts to back him up.
This year, he's pretty sure he doesn't have those sorts of options. If he went home but mostly escaped it so he could get drunk or high, someone like Blaine or Hunter or Therese would track him down and lock him in a dungeon, forcing him into sobriety until the next year of school began. He's not sure if he's annoyed or grateful that there he does have some people around him this year who are good influences on his health rather than encouraging him to continue doing the bad things.
"I don't know," he says eventually, lowering his head and licking his lips anxiously. "Lillian's health is better, right? Maybe my parents will want me home. Maybe they'll apologise and we can start doing things as a family again because they won't be so stressed about her."
His words are a weak excuse, even to his ears. When Blaine doesn't immediately jump in to agree, he knows that the other boy doesn't believe it for a second and his heart sinks.
He wishes he knew what the right way to feel was in regards to the entire situation he's mixed himself up in. His emotions have been on wild rollercoaster since Lillian's surgery barely two weeks ago. He still can't deal with the crushing avalanche inflicted by seeing his parents again. He wants to have hope, he wants to believe the best of his parents, he wants to have their love and support and warmth again. He wants to be their son.
But…perhaps the fact that Blaine, optimist extraordinaire, doesn't believe there's anything to hope is a sign that he shouldn't believe the best in them either. Maybe they were only ever going to let him down.
"Seb, I…" Blaine pauses and Sebastian can imagine him biting his lip. He knows it means Blaine is choosing his words carefully and that means that the thoughts on his mind are going to be difficult to hear. "I think you…you need to be prepared for every possible option. If you want to return home, it's your choice and you know I'll support you but…but if something goes wrong, then I think you should have a back-up plan as well. And whether what goes wrong is…is because they throw you out or because something unexpected happens to Lillian or…well, whatever the reason might be, I think it's smart to ensure you have options."
As much as he doesn't want to admit it, Blaine has a point. There are so many possibilities Sebastian hadn't wanted to entertain but Blaine has verbalised which drive home why it's so important to have options. He still hasn't decided whether he should stay at Dalton or leave. If he leaves, he hasn't decided where he'll go. He can't deny that there's an appeal to losing his mind the entirety of summer, avoiding his parents and Hunter and Blaine and Lillian and Therese by spending his time with the guys until he's so numb he forgets his name, until he's so gone that days lapse together and nothing hurts anymore.
There's a part of him though that thinks his wildly errant thought about getting locked into a dungeon might not be so wild after all. Blaine and Hunter and Therese would lose their minds if they knew what he' done. And what about Lillian? How can he continue hurting her when she might be able to go to the park and sit in the sun with him for the first time in years?
"Please just be safe," Blaine says quietly, his voice unexpected after Sebastian had lost himself in his thoughts. There's something in Blaine's tone, something laced with concern, that makes him wonder again whether Hunter and Blaine are in contact and Hunter told Blaine about his little incident the morning after being at the hospital. There's something about Blaine pleading with him that sets him on edge, unsure about who he trusts.
"I can take care of myself," he snaps, his lips pressing together in an attempt to dam the frustration building within him.
Blaine sighs and the frustration crumbles, replaced by guilt because Blaine sounds so upset and disappointed and he hates hurting Blaine more than anything else.
"I never said you couldn't, Seb. I just need you as a friend, remember?"
He remembers. Pain slices through him at how pathetic he is, at how often he screws up and hurts the people he cares about.
Blaine switches the topic of conversation to something else, some upcoming movie he thinks, but his attention isn't really there anymore. The pain is steadily creeping into the centre of his stomach again, gnawing an acidic hole that makes him curl his knees to his chest. He's pretty sure burning his fingers with matches wouldn't be so agonising.
"Bastian?"
He blinks and tries to focus on the phone still pressed to his ear. "Sorry, B. I just… There's a lot going on at the moment."
Blaine makes a sympathetic humming noise. "You probably have finals coming up soon too?"
He winces at the reminder and grunts in acknowledgement that yes, he does and he really doesn't want to do them. "I don't think James will let me miss them, even if I tried to bribe him or my teachers."
Blaine giggles and it makes the corners of Sebastian's lips to twitch in a tiny smile. "I'm not sure private school works like that."
"Why do you think it sucks?" he says and Blaine laughs again.
Eventually the conversation begins to fade away and Blaine says that his dinner tray has arrived. They say their farewells and the line goes dead and Sebastian is left to lie on his bed, twisting his phone over and over and over in his hands. He feels cold and sad. His stomach is twisting with discomfort because his anxiety about the uncertain summer holiday plans just seems to have exponentially grown by explaining his feelings to Blaine.
Struggling to suck in a deep breath barely minutes after hanging up the phone to Blaine, he slips from the bed and folds himself to the floor in front of his desk. Tucked into a brown paper bag in the bottom drawer, hidden behind some books and papers, he finds the bottle he'd opened more than a week ago.
His fingers trace over the letters and the moulded glass around the neck. He doesn't know how this happened, how he turns to alcohol hen everything in his life turns to shit. He's not sure what it means for his total lifespan but he knows that it's probably not good.
But does he care?
Until the pain lessens, until he works out other ways to cope, he doesn't know how else to deal with everything he feels. For four years, he's been caged by over his sister's health and denying the rejection he's felt by his parents. Alcohol has been his way of stabilising his feelings for the past two years. Alcohol has been his way of reducing the hurt and allowing him to deal with it all. To a lesser, and more recent, extent he's smoked a good joint to increase the numbness but alcohol has been his salvation for long enough.
He unscrews the cap and raises it to his lips, swallowing two mouthfuls and cringing as they go down. It burns down his oesophagus and pools in his stomach with heat. Tears slide down his cheeks because he's so willing to sacrifice everything just so he doesn't have to feel this agonising pain anymore. The bottle is pressed to his lips, a third mouthful dribbling down his throat, when the door opens.
"Hey, I'm-"
Hunter eyes find him too fast, his mouth snapping shut as he surveys the scene. There's nowhere for Sebastian to hide and no way to conceal what he'd just been doing. For the first time in nearly two weeks, Hunter hadn't been with him 24/7 and he'd fallen straight back into the habits he'd always had. There's definitely a hole in his stomach at being caught. He can't even look at Hunter right now because he's too sick with shame and fear.
"Put it down," Hunter says, very calm and very firm as he enters the room and shuts the door behind him. Sebastian hears the lock slide into place and from the corner of his eye, he can see Hunter unknotting his tie and removing his blazer. He knows Hunter will trap him in this if he's not careful, corralling him into surrendering even if that means he's kicking and screaming and his roommate is sitting on top of him. The warmth of the whiskey that had bubbled happily in his stomach has turned into a sickeningly cold sludge. "Put it down, Sebastian."
"You're not-"
"Put it down," Hunter repeats, louder and clearer. If Sebastian had the guts to look up, he thinks there might actually tears in the corner of Hunter's eyes from the way his voice cracks. He can see his roommate approaching him, one cautious step at a time.
His brain is screaming for him to drink more, that this might well be his last chance for a while, but it's hard to glare defiantly at Hunter when swallowing another mouthful. When he peeks up at his roommate, there's something odd about Hunter's expression that jangles his nerves and makes him think he'd probably be crash-tackled if he even tried to raise the bottle to his lips again.
Hunter gets close enough that he can sink to his knees by Sebastian's side, his fingers closing around the neck of the bottle and peeling it from Sebastian's grasp. His protest about its removal is weak at best given his crumbling resolve and burning shame. He knows that another five minutes would have been more than enough time to consume so much that Hunter found him in an intoxicated heap on the floor.
Hunter finds the cap on the carpet and screws it onto the bottle. Once it's sealed again, he places it on the other side of his body far enough away that Sebastian can't reach it without trying to go through Hunter's solid body. He already knows from experience that that's never going to happen because his roommate is far stronger than he'll ever be.
"How much did you drink?" Hunter asks, glancing between the half-empty bottle and Sebastian. It's clear how much he'd drunk from the bottle before. He guesses that's why Hunter hadn't been able to wake him up. He feels guilty for not realising he'd had so much that night and stopping earlier.
It's tempting to lie and say he'd had half the bottle. Part of him might be amused by Hunter panicking that he'd fall into a coma, but he realises he can't really be that cruel to someone who looks like he's about ready to start screaming and shaking Sebastian's shoulders. He's never seen Hunter so unsettled and it actually scares him a little.
"Only a couple of mouthfuls," he admits, looking down at his hands. He can feel his heart and breathing fighting to fall out of rhythm when Hunter's hand covers his, as warm and steady as ever. It's not Blaine's but it's an offer of support, an extension of help. He knows he'd be foolish to reject it.
"Why did you want to drink?"
He doesn't want to blame Blaine for this because he knows it isn't Blaine's fault at all. Instead, he should blame his parents for neglecting him while they focused on Lillian. He should blame the situation he's tangled within, like the uncertainty over what's going to happen when summer rolls around. He knows it's easier to lose his mind with the help of alcohol than the building torment inflicted by ineffective sleep, loneliness, hurt and isolation.
"Life sucks," he mumbles, clambering to his feet and flopping onto the bed on his stomach. He turns his head away from the side Hunter is on, unable to face him because of the horrible feelings brewing inside him.
"It can suck," Hunter agrees and Sebastian hears the fabric of his roommate's clothes shifting before the bed dips and a hand rubs between his shoulder blades. "It doesn't mean you try to forget it as soon as it hurts too much, though."
He scrunches his nose and shuts his eyes, pretending he's going to sleep or something, anything, to avoid looking at Hunter and falling apart in front of his roommate.
"What it usually means is that you allow the people who want to help you in, letting them support you so you don't feel so alone that you can't breathe," Hunter says. His hand moves up to squeeze Sebastian's shoulder before the weight of him on Sebastian's bed leaves. Sebastian half-opens an eye, watching Hunter remove his shoes before he sits on his bed and buries his head in his hands with a sigh. It's not the first time that Sebastian wonders if the only thing he's capable of is making mistakes which disappoint the people around him.
He can't help wondering why Lillian was chosen to have the life-threatening condition until she received a heart from Michigan rather than receive his own. Frozen solid lump of black nothing or not, he doesn't think his life has done anyone any good lately.
Hunter apparently decides to resume his role as babysitter over the weekend.
It's later that night, when he wakes from what he thought was a brief doze, that he goes to have a shower. He discovers his previously half-filled bottle empty, left on the sink for Sebastian to see as soon as he enters the bathroom. He picks it up and traces over the lettering on the label, feeling sad that the alcohol is gone but knowing he wouldn't have had the strength to pour it all out so at least Hunter has done him some sort of favour. He also knows he still has the second bottle hidden in his desk drawers.
He removes his clothes and pulls back the shower curtain to turn on the water. Sitting against the drain pipe, positively mocking him, is the second bottle.
Empty.
Seized with rage, he picks up the bottle and wraps his towel around his waist. He fully intends to break it over Hunter's stupid head to knock some sense into his stupid fucking roommate. Maybe if he lacerates Hunter's scalp, he can check his roommate bleeds red because Sebastian's pretty fucking sure that-
"Yeah, I did," Hunter is saying when Sebastian throws the door open, clutching the towel to his hip to avoid exposing parts of himself that he belatedly realises his roommate has already seen.
All he can see is red. All he can feel is fury. His hands are shaking badly enough that he's slightly worried he might drop the bottle and it will shatter at his feet. Maybe treading on broken glass won't matter anyway. He's sure he'd bleed black despair because there's nothing inside him anymore and anyone who gets too close is just left unhappy.
He glares at Hunter, who has his phone pressed to his ear. His roommate's mouth is slightly ajar, his eyes assessing Sebastian's furious stance.
"I'll call you back," his roommate rushes out before ending the call – to Wes? to Blaine? – and putting the phone onto the bed. He rises from the mattress, feet roughly shoulder width apart, shoulders straight and steady, hands loose by his sides.
Everything about Hunter screams that he's far more in control of this situation than Sebastian. Everything about Hunter makes it clear he's prepared to fight and he knows how to stand defensively.
In contrast, Sebastian can feel his knees struggling to hold him when he just wants to yell and fight and cry and throw things around the room and smash his roommate's skull in.
Not to mention he's holding a towel in some absurd effort to preserve his dignity.
"Why?" he demands, his question coming out rough and raspy because his throat is tight with distress and panic that he's lost not only his primary bottle for coping, but also the back-up bottle and now he doesn't know how he's meant to cope. The decision to stay sober has been completely taken out of his hands and he feels completely out of control.
Hunter's stillness means any movement he makes is amplified a thousandfold. Sebastian can see that his question causes a slight narrowing of Hunter's eyes and the bob of his Adam's apple as he swallows, but otherwise he remains the stoic opposition to Sebastian's internal chaos.
"You can't keep doing this to yourself," Hunter says, somehow stiff and formal. "I can't continue to be afraid of leaving you alone because I'm not sure I trust you to still be alive when I return."
Instead of soothing Sebastian's anger, Hunter's words increase the grip around the neck of the empty bottle. He's fully prepared to rush at Hunter and break it over his head or in his face. Maybe then he'd at least have some expression.
"I can take care of myself," he says, but the words are an unpleasant, bitter echo of what he'd said to Blaine. Before he'd succumbed to the temptation he was too weak to fight.
"Bullshit," Hunter dismisses, stepping towards him. His stance radiates how cautious he's being, how he's cataloguing and calculating Sebastian's own posture and his words. "What did you think when you saw the first bottle empty? 'Oh well, at least I have a second he doesn't know about'?"
Sebastian opens his mouth to argue but realises he can't. Hunter had taken his exact thoughts from his head and it stuns him into silence. His mouth closes and his eyes drop – but not before he sees a flash of triumph across Hunter's face that infuriates him.
"I've seen this before, Sebastian," Hunter says, his voice so tentative that it drags Sebastian's attention upwards.
Hunter is standing close enough to reach out and grasp the bottle in Sebastian's hand. He's still furious but his anger is giving way to disbelief that Hunter actually had the balls to empty out the first bottle and find the second one. His roommate must have crept around his room when Sebastian had dozed off.
"What do you mean?" he asks, curling the towel closer to his body and feeling acutely aware that this is totally not the conversation he should be having when he's basically naked.
His minor gesture seems to catch Hunter's attention and his roommate steps back again with his hands up. "How about you have a shower and put on some clothes and if you're still interested and don't want to kill me with the bottle in your hand, then we'll talk?"
Sebastian's mind tumbles over a million possibilities, but he can't deny he's intrigued. Did Hunter have an alcohol problem in his past? Or a drug issue? He thinks about James saying he knew more about most people than he wanted and if that means they'd been deliberately assigned to the same room because they have matching histories with all the wrong things. What if he'd influenced Hunter into relapsing? What if Hunter had influenced him into trying something worse? Is it neglectful or criminal to set two people up that could cause mutual harm to the other?
He flings the bottle in Hunter's general direction and his roommate narrowly manages to react in time to fumble his way through catching it. He wouldn't really care if Hunter hadn't and it had broken against his feet and scattered shards around the carpet. Their room is already a warzone.
Besides, even if he doesn't have anything to drink, giving up one empty bottle to Hunter's hands isn't so bad: he still has a second bottle he can break over Hunter's stupid head.
By the time he finally drags himself from the shower, his mood has sufficiently lessened that he no longer feels homicidal and he leaves the second bottle in the bathroom. He's spent quite a while enjoying vivid fantasies of breaking it over Hunter's head but for now, he'll listen to what his roommate has to say and then… Well, it's not like it really matters either way. His only coping method had literally been poured down the drain.
He dresses in his jeans and t-shirt and hangs his towel on the rack. He suspects he's dragging this out as long as possible, procrastinating a conversation he's not sure he wants to have. He doesn't particularly feel like facing Hunter's disdain or judgement. He doesn't feel like knowing his roommate's intimate details despite all that Hunter knows about him.
Staring at his foggy reflection in the mirror, breathing a massive sigh, he escapes the bathroom to face up to the inevitable before he freezes in the doorway.
Hunter sits stiffly in his desk chair, back to Sebastian, oddly trusting that Sebastian won't leave the bathroom and try killing him again.
Across the room, in Sebastian's own desk chair, sits Wes.
"If this is an-"
"It's not an intervention," Hunter interrupts, turning to look at Sebastian and waving his hand towards Sebastian's bed. "Have a seat, Seb."
Sebastian can't stop looking at Wes, who meets his gaze steadily, as he approaches his bed and sits on the edge of it. Hunter being here was a no-brainer although he didn't know what he expected Hunter to talk about. Wes? Wes is an anomaly he'd never expected.
"So…" he prompts, his anxiety making him shifting on the bed. He just wants to get this over and done with as quickly and painlessly as possible.
"I might not know the extent of what you've done but I know that you're destroying yourself," Hunter says, looking from Sebastian to Wes. Wes inclines his head a fraction and then Hunter's eyes meet Sebastian's again. There's a fire in the green eyes he's not sure he's seen before, a squareness to Hunter's jaw that makes him look almost dangerous. "If I find contraband in your possession again, I won't hesitate to go to Principal James and report you."
Sebastian gapes at Hunter, his stomach twisting inside out and his rage increasing at an alarming rate. Hunter's words feel like they're laced with so many layers of threats that he can't properly separate them all but underscoring all of it is the knowledge that if James finds out what he's done, he'd probably be expelled.
And then where would he go?
"I'm able to-"
"You're not going to spin me that crap again, are you?" Hunter says, leaning forward in his chair with such speed that Sebastian thought his roommate was going to launch out of it. It scares him as much as it makes him realise Hunter is finding it difficult to sit still much like Sebastian. He doesn't like acknowledging their similarities. "You don't have to admit anything about what you do to me. Hell, maybe you can't even admit it to yourself but-"
"Hunter," Wes says quietly, derailing his roommate's spiel. Sebastian doesn't even realise why until Wes' hand touches his forearm. Apparently Sebastian had gotten to his feet without realising, his hands curled into shaking fists by his sides. "Take a breath, Sebastian."
"Don't-"
"Take a breath, Sebastian," Wes repeats as he moves closer, circling his fingers around Sebastian's arm like an ill-fitting bracelet. Despite Wes being a sophomore, Sebastian is a head taller than him. Perhaps it's because Wes is a sophomore that Sebastian obeys the authority that fills Wes' tone and the determination that glints in his dark eyes as he holds Sebastian's wrist.
When his hands begin to steady and his breath isn't stuttering past his lips quite so much, Wes removes his fingers from his skin. Sebastian isn't sure he wants to sit down, preferring the idea of pacing around like an enraged animal, wrecking things at ill because once again, he's trapped in his room and now there are two people trying to tame him.
"My father abuses alcohol," Hunter says, distracting him from his own thoughts. Sebastian's gaze snaps over to his roommate, watching the way his hands fidget in familiar patterns in his lap. "He gets nasty when he has too much. Sometimes he's been violent. My mom…" Hunter's fingers twist into a ball to hide the faint tremors Sebastian thought he'd seen. "My mom finally had enough and packed up a few years ago and left me with him."
Fragments of the knowledge he'd pieced together about Hunter increase with the words his roommate offers. Now he understands why he'd never heard Hunter talk about his mother before. Now he understands why Hunter had felt so good standing up to his father at the hospital. What had Hunter said at the time, that Sebastian's father was a substitute but he wouldn't get a black eye?
"My father is retired military who probably has undiagnosed PTSD," Hunter continues, his body language betraying how incredibly uncomfortable he is with sharing these parts of himself. Sebastian is too busy trying to process it to think about what his face is doing but he hopes it doesn't seem so confrontational anymore. "I think he drinks to cope with the darkness that's deep within his soul at the horrors he's seen and-"
Hunter cuts himself off with a shake of his head and looks up at Sebastian. Hunter looks the smallest, weakest, most vulnerable, that Sebastian has ever seen.
"I don't know the entirety of your story and I'm not asking for it," Hunter says, his gaze drifting to Wes for a moment before he swallows, "but I'm scared for you, Sebastian. I'm scared for you and I don't want to…to be unable to wake you up again or for your sister to find you like that or…God, even Blaine finding you like that because it was so fucking terrifying and just… I can't ask you to stop but…" Hunter's words trail away as he shrugs and returns to staring at his hands. "I don't want you to keep hurting when people want to help you."
It's only when Hunter finishes speaking that Sebastian becomes aware of the fact that Wes hasn't really moved from beside him. It feels claustrophobic and uncomfortable and he immediately steps back. The other boy seems to get the message and moves across the room to press a hand to Hunter's shoulder.
He realises in that moment, seeing Wes silently support Hunter, that he wants Blaine here. More than anything, he wants Blaine's hand on his shoulder, Blaine's fingers twined with his own, Blaine's curls beneath his cheek as they lay together. He wants Blaine to steady the rampaging series of emotions that all seem to be heading in the direction of him slumping to the floor in a mess of tears.
He can't get the image out of his mind of Lillian finding him, shaking him, being unable to wake him, screaming his name as tears stain her cheeks.
It terrifies the hell out of him.
"I don't know what else to do," he admits in a whisper, sinking into his unoccupied desk chair, his fingers sliding through his hair. He's crumbling with defeat in front of Hunter and Wes and he feels like shit for doing so but he can't keep hiding it any longer. He's too broken. He's too exhausted. He's too lost.
"So you drink because it's your only option to escape?" Hunter prompts. Sebastian's eyes flicker upwards to see Hunter watching him, his lips pursed together and his eyes doing that thing again where he seems to see straight past all of Sebastian's armoured walls. He gives a non-committal shrug and looks down again.
"You've suffered enough," Wes says, moving from Hunter's side to crouch in front of Sebastian. The vicious side of Sebastian wonders why Wes bothers to crouch – he's already short. "Do you want to keep being alone and hurting yourself, Sebastian?"
Of course not he nearly snaps, the words echoing in his mind harsh and bitter. Hunter realised he had a problem because Hunter has experience in recognising the signs and was genuine in wanting to help. Wes is…not someone he signed up to dealing with when he climbed on today's rollercoaster. He doesn't feel comfortable divulging his secrets to someone more or less a stranger.
"You need to do it for yourself," Hunter says, drawing Sebastian's attention back to his roommate. "You need to realise this isn't the life you want but…if you need someone else as motivation, then use Blaine. Use your sister. Use whomever you need to get through all the crap but don't…don't keep hurting yourself when there are people that care about you."
Sebastian wants to deny that anyone cares about him because hello, Hunter had met his parents but…but he can't deny it. Lillian might still be recovering from major surgery but he knows their sibling bond is unbreakable. He remembers how sad Lillian had been when she thought he was unhappy with himself and how she hadn't wanted him to destroy things and…he had, hadn't he? He's been hell-bent on his own destruction for years.
And Blaine is…Blaine. Blaine is his shining ball of optimism and hope and support and courage. Blaine is the person who takes every calls and listens to every ounce heartache. The safety he'd felt with his head in Blaine's lap while Lillian was in surgery, fingers combing through his hair to keep him calm, had been incomparable. A year ago, he wouldn't have trusted anyone else near him at a time like that. Now, Blaine's the person who had kept him close and protected him, had soothed his terror and made him smile, during the worst hours of his life. Maybe Therese had been right – maybe he is scared of losing someone like Blaine. Maybe that's why every time he feels himself getting too close to Blaine he tries to draw away.
"Hunter, I…" He shrugs helplessly at his roommate, increasingly overwhelmed by all the emotions he can't handle and all the words he can't process into any semblance of a sentence. He's torn between the urges to cry or to rage around, to fall to the floor or to fold himself under the covers of his bed and never leave. The threads of his control are starting to fray too much to hold onto.
"I'm here, Seb," Hunter says, rising from his seat to move closer and pressing his hand into Sebastian's shoulder. "I'm here, and I'm pretty sure if you called Blaine right now, he'd be in your corner all the way and so would your sister. You don't have to do this alone."
"I can help too," Wes says from his spot on the floor, patting Sebastian's knee before he stands and drifts towards Hunter's bookshelf.
Sebastian's hand moves to his shoulder, his fingers twisting between Hunter's. It's a poor substitute for Lillian or Blaine but for now, it helps to ground him in the present and stops him from scattering into pieces on the floor that can't be put back together again. At this point, he thinks he may as well be called Humpty Dumpty.
"I don't want to scare Lillian," he whispers, peering up at his roommate who squeezes his fingers.
"Would you be willing to work together?" Hunter asks, kneeling in front of Sebastian and looking at him with all the earnestness in the world. "I don't need your entire past but…I'd just ask for your honesty if you felt like you need to get wasted. I don't need to know why if you don't want to talk about, just the knowledge that you feel that way and….and we can talk or watch a movie or I can give you some privacy to talk to Blaine or we can do some homework or whatever you think would help distract you until the feelings pass."
If anyone had told Sebastian a year ago that Lillian would survive a heart transplant, that Sebastian had been kicked out of home and into boarding school, that he'd questioned and re-questioned his sexuality before starting to admit to the closest people he had in his life that he might be gay, and a boy that threatened to hit him on their first day as roommates then blew him when he was coming off a really bad night out with the guys and was now offering to distract him from his desperate urge to forget every part of his life on a regular basis… Well, he would have laughed. Blaine and Hunter falling into his life was an unexpected pair of catalysts in recognising that his life was totally out of control and not only were numerous people disappointed in him, but he was also disappointed in himself.
"I can try," he concedes, breathing a small sigh of relief when Hunter squeezes his hands and lets go. He's scared about what Hunter's words mean because he doesn't really know yet how to implement all of Hunter's suggestions to stop himself doing something stupid or dangerous. It's not like he hasn't known the risks of mixing alcohol and marijuana, or drinking to the point of passing out, but he just hasn't cared enough to do anything about it. He hadn't believed anyone else had cared enough to help him stop either.
He's not sure if Blaine knows just how reckless he's been. He knows Blaine is smart and would have the ability to look it up. He has a feeling if Lillian ever found out the risks, she'd march straight into his dorm room and slap him stupid and then cry her little heart out of her chest.
It wouldn't be like her upset wouldn't be deserved after all the hurt he's caused her over the years.
"It will be okay," Hunter says before he wanders over to join Wes by the bookshelf.
Sebastian hopes Hunter is right. He's not sure he has much fight left in him these days. Lillian's always been better at beating the odds than he has. She's always had the internal fire to keep going and hold onto hope when he's been more willing to set fire to the tip of a joint and hold onto a bottle.
He eventually crawls onto his bed and wraps his arms around the pillow beneath his head. He tries to pretend it's Blaine's chest, tries to imagine Blaine's fingers threading through his hair while he speaks gentle but wise words that float over Sebastian's skin. Regardless of what Hunter said when he'd emerged from the bathroom, the conversation had definitely felt like an intervention. He felt like he was going to be put out on the line until the alcohol in is system had dried out, even if that meant he was burned and wrinkly by the end of it.
He can hear Wes and Hunter's quiet voices on the other side of the room but he doesn't really want to participate in any further discussion. He feels like he's exposed enough of his soul for the day – maybe even the next decade – and now he just needs to nurse his aching heart. Blaine knows he feels lost and now so do Wes and Hunter. He's still not sure why any of them care enough to offer him help. It's not as though he's going to be a source of joy and light in their lives.
"See you soon, Sebastian," Wes calls and he grimaces even though the other boy can't see it. The door opens and closes and Sebastian can hear the quiet breaths of his roommate in the ensuing silence.
"Do you want to…be held or something?" Hunter says, sounding as uncomfortable as Sebastian feels with the idea.
"No," he answers, hugging the pillow closer to him and closing his eyes to try to overlay the memories of Blaine's chest on the fabric. Maybe if he tries hard enough, he can feel the firmness of Blaine's ribs and the softness of his belly beneath his arms and hands.
"I didn't want to do it," Hunter says and Sebastian can hear the shuffling footsteps get closer to his bed. "I didn't want to have to confront you like that but…I didn't know what else to do."
"You didn't have to interfere in someone else's life," Sebastian points out, frustrated that Hunter's voice is breaking his illusion of Blaine in his arms. He needs silence so he can concentrate.
"I couldn't watch you kill yourself because you were abusing alcohol when I've seen that there are two very important people in your life willing to do anything for you. I'd never forgive myself for seeing you every day and doing nothing."
Sebastian opens his eyes and glances to the side to catch a fragment of Hunter's body by his bedside. "I'm not as weak as you think."
"Then it shouldn't be very hard for you to remain sober," Hunter says nonchalantly and returns to his side of the room. "After all, it's not like you were relieved when you thought I'd just found one bottle since you still had a second. There's nothing like knowing you've got a fall-back and your roommate is too foolish to find it. But… Oh wait…"
His hands clench into fists beneath the pillow but he refuses to rise to the bait. He can tell Hunter is deliberately goading him, probably because he hasn't given away much about his feelings towards the situation he now finds himself in. Even if he could separate the various feelings, he's not sure he let it all out. He's not sure how to let it all out.
He ignores Hunter's words long enough that the other boy sighs and falls silent. Sebastian suspects he's reading given the occasional sound of scraping paper but he doesn't care enough to check. There's an icy-hot sensation of betrayal creeping down his spine and oozing through his gut. He hopes it won't last forever.
~TBC~