Title: Worth Fighting For
Author: an-alternate-world
Rating: M
Characters/Pairing: Sebastian Smythe/Blaine Anderson
Word Count: 2,335
Summary: Sebastian knows something is wrong with the way Blaine is glowering at him over the rim of his mug of eggnog. Once he discovers the reason why, he makes resolutions to plan something special with the help of some old friends. **Close to Nothing sequel**
Warnings/Spoilers: As a 'Close to Nothing' sequel, you really should have read the original already.
Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with Glee, FOX, Ryan Murphy, or anything else related to the FOX universe.

He texts Rachel and they meet the next week after he finishes work on Tuesday. Her latest musical has just moved to stage rehearsals at the Music Box Theatre after the previous show closed and he always finds it weird to be entering a theatre that is, for all intents and purposes, gutted.

The stage is mostly bare – there are stage-hands building pieces of set or props, and there are people climbing ladders to rig lights and speakers to bars at the front of the stage – but there's no real magic of a production when the theatre looks like this. He always finds it unnerving because something about the hive of activity is like a secretive world that very few outsiders get to see and it's completely changed his engagement with, and appreciation of, any shows he and Blaine have seen over the years.

Some of the cast members wave at him and he thinks he vaguely recognises them from the various parties Rachel and Jesse have, but he can't match any names with faces.

"Rachel's backstage," a girl with bright yellow pants and pink hair tells him when she catches him searching the crowd for the brunette. The guy standing beside the girl, very obviously eyeing Sebastian up and down even though he has orange hair streaked with blue and just no, hollers Rachel's name so loudly that one of the crew drops a screwdriver on the stage.

"Sorry!" the orange-and-blue haired boy says, looking sheepish and shrugging as Pink-Haired Girl drags him away.

"Sebastian!" Rachel shrieks, emerging from a door on the side of the stage and skipping down the stairs to launch at him for a hug. "Hi!"

If anyone had told him in high school that he'd be hugging Rachel Berry one day, he'd have thought they were mad. She's probably become the closest friend he has, Blaine notwithstanding, and he's not sure when or how that happened but it still boggles his mind that it did.

"Hey," he says, patting her back briefly before she releases him and pinches his cheek like his grandmother used to do when he was a very small boy in France.

"How are you?" she says, big brown eyes serious and concerned and he forgets that Blaine tells her just about everything so she probably knows all about how he's been quiet the past few days.

"I'm alright," he assures, kissing the top of her hair as she leans into him. For someone that is such a powerhouse with her voice and a dynamo of energy, he always forgets how small she is. He waves at the stage and she glances towards it, a nervous smile on her face like she needs his approval even though he has no real idea what he's looking at. "Soo… This looks crazy."

"Oh my God, don't even get me started," she says, watching the team of people moving around on the stage. "Charlie, our Crew Head, broke his arm when he stupidly decided to go snowboarding over Christmas with his mates. So now he has to tell everyone else what to do and Charlie is a lot like me, needing to be in control and making things that are perfect, so you can imagine how well that's going."

She points towards a guy, with his entire arm in plaster up to his shoulder, who is jabbing his finger at a piece of paper and then some piece of set that a couple of other guys are standing beside. Given the forlorn looks on their faces and the stormy look on Charlie's, Sebastian suspects the building project isn't going well.

"Then Maxine, our Sound Designer, is struggling to get the sound mix just right because every theatre has slightly different acoustics and there's so much noise from everyone else that she can't separate the sounds properly and then she was complaining to Jorge before because what's the point in getting it perfect if the Tony's still won't recognise her own artistic genius, right? Like everyone else in a musical gets acknowledgement for their work but a sound designer – who is responsible for making sure the audience can literally hear the music in a musical – gets nothing? I mean, she has a point but Jorge isn't throwing this much money at the production only to have the sound get washed out so he told her to shut up and get on with it and then she-"

She pauses and he looks down at the guilty expression on her face.

"I got started, didn't I?" she says, biting her bottom lip, and he laughs and wraps an arm around her shoulders.

"I really don't understand why you don't like Cooper," he muses as she leads him through the theatre and up the stairs to the second level. It's not exactly quieter but it is more private, and he likes the ability to look down on everyone, like he's part of some supervisory team but still separated enough from all the strangers he doesn't have to engage in pleasantries and small talk and they won't get interrupted.

"Because he doesn't listen to me! He only wants to talk about himself!"

He arches an eyebrow at her dubiously and she scrunches her nose and pouts at him.

"I thought you wanted to talk to me, not make me feel like a child," she says and he laughs as they sit, his legs draped over a chair in front of him because there just wasn't enough leg room on the upper level of Broadway theatres and her legs folded beneath her.

"You're hardly a child anymore with two rugrats of your own at home," he says and she rolls her eyes and gives him a wave which is a very clear, Get to the point, gesture. "Look, okay, fine. I, uh… So Blaine brought up that he thought I was going to propose at Christmas."

Her eyes light up and a smile spreads across her face and it's his turn to roll his eyes. "I didn't say anything, I swear. And Jesse is sworn to absolute and total secrecy and the kids don't know so-"

"I'm not accusing you of anything," he interrupts and she nods, still all wide-eyed excitement and joy. "I… I guess, um… Well, I- I called Andy's mom last week and I- I'm more at peace with the idea of, y'know, proposing now than I probably was."

She nods rapidly as he talks and he has a feeling she's struggling not to bounce out of her seat with nervous energy. For once, he's glad he battled through the simplified version of what happened to Andy with her when they'd first re-met at Blaine's insistence five years ago. It means she's understood how challenging this whole process has been since he bought the ring.

"I'm- I'm not asking you to give me the ring back just yet," he says as she visibly deflates. He nearly laughs at her complete change of demeanour. "Soon, though. It- It's cliché but I was thinking I'd propose on Valentine's Day? It's…important. To us. And… Well, I might need your help purchasing some of the stuff I need so that Blaine doesn't see strange purchases or find my browser history deleted and thinks I'm having an affair and then I might need your help getting it all organised and then we… Like, maybe you could ask him to babysit the kids because you and Jesse want to go out to a fancy lunch because you have an evening show so it keeps him busy and unaware and minimises his suspicions that something is happening behind his back?"

Rachel's eyes narrow. "So you're essentially trying to ruin my Valentine's Day so you can make yours spectacular?"

He shrugs and runs a nervous hand through his hair. "Not the whole day. I just… I know this isn't something I can arrange alone when he's already thinking I'm going to propose. Anything I do, anything he thinks I'm doing, will make him curious and potentially spoil it. I know if he realises I've started calling or texting you more then he'll start thinking you're involved in something and he'll start pressuring you, and me, to learn what's going on. It's why I came here from work and I can just use the excuse I got held up at the office to explain why I'm home later than usual so… so I… I just needed your help before the day and on the day and…and I guess I was hoping you liked me enough to help me choreograph some excuses to keep him occupied so that he doesn't suspect anything?"

Rachel's scrutinising look morphs into an ecstatic grin and she flings her arms around him with a shrill exclamation. "Of course I will help! Tell me everything."

Sebastian's pretty sure the next month has never passed so quickly, or so slowly, in his life. It's a flurry of texts to Rachel to make sure she remembers to order what he needs and a couple of extra meetings at the theatre after he finishes work to nail down the details of what he needs Rachel to do on the day and what they'll get Blaine to do so he doesn't wonder where Sebastian is. It makes it tremendously difficult to cover his amusement with something resembling genuine dismay when Blaine informs him one evening that they'll have to make dinner reservations for Valentine's Day because he's been tasked with babysitting Alison and Luca.

"That seems kinda inconsiderate of them," he says as considerately as he can while Blaine grumbles and stirs the pasta.

"You're telling me, but she absolutely wouldn't be persuaded otherwise. 'It's very hard to have alone time when you have children, Blaine. I'm sure you will understand one day and load your brood up on us just so you and Sebastian can screw each other's brains out for a few hours,'" Blaine mimics. It's a perfect imitation and Sebastian hopes that Blaine thinks he choked on his sip of water because of what was said and not because he's thinking that what she said was not part of their original plan.

Still, it does the trick of locking Blaine into being busy for the day.

"So she thinks we'll have a brood of children, huh?" he says with a slight smile and Blaine throws a withering look over his shoulder.

"You'll be lucky if I agree to any more than two. Between Cooper and Rachel complaining about their hands being full, I am not in a rush to have a dozen."

He snorts and the conversation shifts to what they'd name a dozen children – first names, middle names, whether they'd hyphenate last names or take turns in having a Smythe baby or an Anderson baby – and it perfectly redirects Blaine's attention as the name suggestions become more and more ridiculous ("But just think, Sebastian, we could name them Banana and Apple and Kiwi and Mango and Apricot, and when we need them to come for dinner, we just yell 'FRUIT SALAD!'!).

In the month of semi-frantic and definitely-panicked organising, he's not sure if Blaine suspects anything but he hopes to God that he doesn't. Although he tries to act totally normal, sometimes Blaine is looking at him with an odd expression and he immediately wonders if there's something in his eyes that betrays how he's still rearranging parts of the proposal plan. It's hard to completely conceal his feelings when he's been such an open book with Blaine, when Blaine can peel away his layers to expose the vulnerabilities beneath, but at the same time he needs to not close himself off so much that Blaine starts worrying that he's withdrawing and back-sliding into depression. He hopes he allays Blaine's concerns by taking an extra moment when they're kissing to try to convey how he feels with the press of his lips, or grasping at Blaine's slick hip when they move together in the dead darkness of night-time, but he can't risk asking Blaine and Blaine turning the interrogation around and suddenly he's exposing his plan to propose.

The anticipation reminds him of what it was like when he'd decided to propose to Andy and how he'd spent sleepless nights working how the date and the time and the location and what to say and what to do, and in-between that he'd been fighting the fluttery urge to just do it, right then, right now, wherever they were, whatever time of day it was, plans be damned. He knew Andy would've said yes long before New Year and he knows Blaine would say yes if he asked him first thing in the morning, the early light spilling over his tan skin and making him glow. It's part of what makes planning something so big so difficult and yet he knows neither Andy nor Blaine would ever reject him if he simply asked them over a bowl of cereal.

But lying awake on yet another sleepless night with Blaine's snuffly snores beside him because he's too busy thinking about the right words to say, he figures it shouldn't be so hard to act normal. Surely he was a capably functioning human at some point in his life, right?

~TBC~