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Sebastian doesn’t like Ohio.
He despises every second of every slow, achingly miserable Summer that he spends there. The days are spent bored out of his mind and perpetually waiting for his father to finish work, the nights pretending not to care when his father inevitably drags home more work and takes a raincheck on whatever it is he had promised to do on any given day.
His parents are forever forcing the word holiday onto these visits, like if they say the word enough times Sebastian might forget what it actually means and suddenly agree with them, but Sebastian knows better. Nobody in their right mind would pick Westerville, Ohio as their holiday destination of choice. It is clear to him, at least, that what these visits really are, are warnings.
It is there in the way his mother can’t even bring herself to pretend to be genuine as she laughs, “Oh, don’t look so miserable about it, darling. You’ll have fun,” as she ushers him away towards check-in. Like Sebastian doesn’t know that she is just looking forward to being able to have her first gin-and-tonic of the day at three instead of six.
It is there in the mocking, subtle raise of his father’s eyebrows when he finally appears, inevitably two hours after the time he promises Sebastian every morning, and asks, “How was your day, champ?”
Sebastian is eleven years old, going on twelve, he is nobody’s champ or darling and he is almost entirely certain that Westerville, Ohio is where everything fun in life goes to die.
--
There is a park about half a block from his father’s house that Sebastian has taken to walking to most mornings. He mostly lies around in the grass, scowling at how lame this stupid park and this stupid town and his whole, stupid life is, because the park is deserted most days and he suspects there must be a better one nearby.
It is on the days that it isn’t deserted, however, that he maybe pays a little more attention.
There is this boy who sits on the swings sometimes, the toes of his sneakers dragging listlessly back and forth through the bark as he drifts, staring at nothing, and never actually swings.
It’s weird.
For one, the boy may be a scrawny little thing, but Sebastian is pretty sure he is too old to be playing on swings. Even if he isn’t, exactly, playing on the swings.
For two, if he is going to go ahead and sit on the damn swing, he may as well go through with the fun part and actually swing. Otherwise what’s the point?
The boy isn’t there everyday and it isn’t like it is a big deal, it’s not like they’ve even spoken or anything, but when he is there Sebastian feels, weirdly enough, like maybe there is somebody else in the world who wants to get out of Ohio as badly as he does. It makes the stupid park and the stupid town and his stupid life just that little bit more bearable.
--
The morning that it happens, his father mentions something about a baseball game as he is on his way out the door and Sebastian isn’t about to hold his breath (he is still waiting for the bowling night and the movie night and the laser tag) but a part of him waits, poised, for the promise of, “5.30, tops, kiddo,” called from the door before he gets up to dump his plate in the dishwasher and wander upstairs to get dressed.
When he finally makes it to the park the sun is already starting to heat up, the grass tickling his ankles is warm and dry, but the boy isn’t there.
The swings sit deserted as ever as Sebastian flops back onto the grass to scowl up at the sky, unsure why he is suddenly in such a bad mood when he catches a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye.
His eyes jerk towards the jungle gym, only meters away from where Sebastian is lying, and snag upon the sight of the boy sitting on the highest bar. His knees are locked securely around his perch, his hands resting lightly at his sides for balance, and he is watching Sebastian with narrowed eyes.
He has had a haircut, Sebastian notes as they lock eyes. The last time Sebastian had seen him his hair had been a thick bramble of dark curls, spilling into his eyes and over his ears and forming these weird little corkscrews at the nape of his neck that Sebastian had felt the inexplicable urge to pull on. Now the unruly tufts of what is left of his hair seem to be trying to curl outwards in every direction in retaliation and he looks, Sebastian thinks to himself, kind of like a sheep that has just been shorn.
“Why are you staring at me?” the boy calls out, his voice surprisingly soft, like he isn’t entirely sure that he wants Sebastian to hear him.
“Why are you staring at me?” Sebastian retorts before he can stop himself, feeling the slow crawl of something hot rising up his neck that he immediately blames on the heat.
The boy chews on his lower lip, eyebrows furrowed and Sebastian is startled to realize that he is actually thinking about it. His eyes dipping down towards his knees before he says, “You don’t live around here.”
“What was your first clue, genius?” Sebastian snaps back, feeling inexplicably defensive, and pushes himself up onto his elbows so he can better see the boy who keeps rubbing a hand self-consciously through his hair. Sebastian kind of wants to tell him to put his hand back on the bar.
There is a strange pang in his chest when he notices the way the other boy’s face falls, his eyes dropping as he bites down on his lower-lip and his cheeks flood with color.
“I’m just visiting my dad,” Sebastian blurts out suddenly, not knowing why he feels kind of bad about being rude to some weird kid who hangs out by himself in a shitty park when he is rude to other people all the time and doesn’t even care, but he does. Feel bad, that is. “He lives down the street.”
“Oh,” the boy says, still staring down at his knees.
Sebastian pushes himself up until he is sitting, inexplicably annoyed by the lack of a reaction, so he scowls and asks, “So, why are you here?”
“My brother’s girlfriend is over,” the boy admits, wrinkling his nose and smiling shyly as he looks over and adds, “He pays me ten bucks a week to stay away from the house when she’s there.”
Sebastian snorts with surprise, plucking distractedly at the grass and tossing it off to the side as he scoffs, “But why here? Don’t you have friends or something?”
He realizes that probably wasn’t very nice when the boy’s eyes drop back to his knees and his fingers clench around the bar that he is perched on. His face turned hard as he mutters, without any conviction at all, “They’re busy.”
Sebastian shifts uncomfortably when one of the boy’s hands leaves the bar to rub carefully at his elbow and he catches a glimpse of an angry, painful looking graze that reaches almost from elbow to wrist.
“What happened to your arm?” escapes his mouth before he can even think about it, because now that he has seen that, he notices the scuff of dirt across the knees of the boy's jeans (and it’s not like Sebastian notices how other boys dress, or whatever, but he had thought it was kind of different just how neat this particular boy always seems to be) and how bright the other boy’s eyes are, like he is maybe ten seconds away from crying.
Sebastian can not deal with crying.
“Fell over,” the boy sniffs, determinedly not looking at Sebastian as he carefully shifts on the bar to rebalance himself.
It is pretty obvious that what the boy actually means is that someone pushed him over and Sebastian doesn’t know why it matters, because he doesn’t even know this kid’s name, but it annoys him. Maybe it’s because he is so little.
“I think that might need a bandage or something,” Sebastian says, pushing himself to his feet and walking to the edge of the playground so he can get a better look.
The other boy lets out a loud sigh and before Sebastian can so much as tell him not to he is dropping backwards. He thinks he probably makes some kind of embarrassing horrified noise before he realizes that the boy has somehow managed to land on his feet, even though the last Sebastian had seen he had been heading for a head first landing, and is now scowling over at Sebastian.
“It doesn’t even hurt that much,” the boy says, and now that he is on the ground Sebastian can see that he really is that short.
“It’s still bleeding,” Sebastian points out with a wrinkle of his nose.
“Well I can’t go home, alright?” the boy snaps back, folding his arms defensively across his chest, though he keeps the injured one carefully out of contact with anything else and before Sebastian can so much as open his mouth the other boy is talking again with increasing speed and agitation, “If I go home Cooper will get mad at me for ruining his date and then he’ll ask who did it and he’ll get mad at them and then they’ll all hate me even more.”
Sebastian blinks over at him a few times, taken aback by the realization that the other boy isn’t upset, he is angry.
“We could go to my dad’s house,” Sebastian offers before he even knows what he is saying. “He probably has band-aids or something.”
The boy blinks over at him, clearly surprised by the offer before he looks down at his feet and asks, “Why are you being nice to me?”
Sebastian thinks it is probably a pretty good question, considering he is never really nice to anyone, unless it suits him. When he realizes he doesn’t actually have an answer that makes any kind of sense (because he is pretty sure that saying he thinks the boy has pretty eyes isn’t a particularly good reason) he shrugs and says, “I have nothing better to do.”
The boy chews on his lip, eyes narrowed suspiciously for a moment before he sighs and starts to walk over to where Sebastian is standing, stopping within a careful distance of him before he extends his hand and says, “I’m Blaine.”
Sebastian stares down at his hand for a moment, thinking that strange behaviour like that is probably exactly the reason that people are pushing this Blaine kid over, before reaching out to shake his hand in response and replying, “I’m Sebastian.”
--
Sebastian can’t find any bandages but he does find a box full of band-aids in the bottom of one of the drawers in his dad’s bathroom which he meticulously sticks, one over the other, until the graze is mostly covered.
After that they sit outside on his back lawn in the sun and Sebastian discovers that he actually quite likes talking to Blaine.
He laughs for almost five whole minutes when Blaine says he is going to be twelve next month, that he is older than Sebastian, and scoffs out, “But you’re like, half my size.”
“My dad says I haven’t had my growth spurt yet,” Blaine replies stiffly, ripping at the grass beneath his fingers roughly like he is annoyed and Sebastian tries to stop laughing but it’s hard.
“My mom said I look like a giraffe once,” Sebastian tells him carefully, because he thinks maybe Blaine will stop scowling if he feels like the score is even. Granted, at the time, his mom had been on her second gin-and-tonic of the night and she had been eyeing the hemline of his jeans, sitting high around his ankles, and sighing.
Still, Sebastian remembers these things.
Blaine blinks over at him with wide eyes and shakes his head wildly as he says, “You don’t.”
Something about the sudden flush of colour on Blaine’s face makes Sebastian believe him and he nods and smiles, wide and appreciative, as he says, “You’re not that short.”
He really is, but Sebastian thinks it kind of suits him. If Blaine was a girl he would say it was cute or something.
Blaine beams at him in response, a brilliant, toothy smile that makes Sebastian’s heart stutter strangely in his chest.
When Blaine disappears off home later on, saying he has to be back home before his parents finish work or Cooper won’t give him his ten dollars, Sebastian realizes that maybe Westerville isn’t so bad after all.
--
The next morning Sebastian arrives early at the park, unable to stop the hammering of anticipation that he tells himself is stupid, because it’s not like Blaine even said he was going to be there and even if they are friends now or something, Blaine is still just some weird kid.
He doesn’t really know why he is excited, but when he sees Blaine sitting at the top of the slide, his feet swinging back and forth, clunking boredly against the rungs of the ladder as he stares blankly into space, he can’t help but break out into a grin.
“Hey,” he calls out as he crosses the playground, peering up at Blaine as he blinks and cranes his neck down with surprise.
“Hi,” Blaine replies, a smile crawling across his face.
Sebastian can see that the line-up of plasters have disappeared from Blaine’s arm, replaced by one long white strip that has been stuck down by tape. He frowns a little at the sight and Blaine notices his stare, grimacing and raising his arm to look at it.
“My mom saw,” he grumbles aloud. “Cooper’s mad even though I told her that I tripped over the sprinkler.”
Sebastian thinks of how long it had taken to line each of the band-aids carefully up next to each other, holding Blaine’s arm still with his fingers as he smoothed each band-aid into place, and can’t explain why the sight of the neater bandage annoys him. He shrugs a little as he asks, “Did your brother get in trouble?”
Sebastian is weirdly fascinated by what Blaine has told him about his older brother. Sebastian had always thought that having siblings must be awful, but Blaine seems to think that Cooper is pretty cool.
“No,” Blaine sighs, as he stands to balance carefully on the top rung of the ladder and Sebastian expects him to turn around and slide down to the ground, like any normal person would, but instead he launches himself off of the ladder and lands with a thump in the bark, rocking forward onto his toes before he rights himself. “That’s why it’s so stupid. I’m the one who got told to be more careful so I don’t know why he’s mad.”
There is a part of Sebastian that kind of wishes Blaine wouldn’t do things like that, but he doesn’t say anything.
Blaine beams at him suddenly, his eyes wide with excitement as he asks, “So, what are we doing today?”
Sebastian is starting to suspect that he could be convinced into almost anything by that smile.
--
They meet almost every day at the park, after that.
Sebastian finds he doesn’t really mind so much when his father bemoans having to work on a Saturday, tuning out the apologies until his father disappears out the door with a call of, “4.30 at the latest, champ,” and he hurriedly ditches his plate and checks the clock.
It is almost ten, and while he hadn’t told Blaine he would definitely be there, he knows that Blaine’s parents are away for the weekend and Cooper is supposed to be looking after him.
When he gets to the park, however, Blaine isn’t the only one who is there.
There are three other boys standing around, all of them bigger than Blaine is (though that really isn’t saying much) and Sebastian can hear the things they are yelling from the other end of the playground.
He doesn’t really know what he is supposed to do, but he keeps walking towards them with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
Nobody has ever really dared to mess with Sebastian. He has always been taller and smarter and, well, meaner than anyone who tried to start anything, so they never really got anywhere. But Blaine is small and he is way too nice and Sebastian is starting to suspect that, while he is tougher than he looks, he really isn’t very good at protecting himself.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian asks, once he is only a few feet away, straightening his spine until he is standing at his full height and staring down his nose at the boys (just like his dad does when he is annoyed at someone).
They snap their heads around when they hear his voice, watching him suspiciously until one pipes up, “Who are you?”
Sebastian sniffs dismissively and glances over at Blaine who is staring at him strangely before back to the boys and replying, “I’m Blaine’s friend. Who are you?”
One of them snickers, turning his head back to ask, “Is he your boyfriend, Anderson?”
Blaine shakes his head wildly, his eyes darting, terrified, towards Sebastian as his cheeks flood with colour and he insists, “No.”
Sebastian narrows his eyes and snaps, “Fuck off,” at the boys as he shoulders his way between two of them, feeling very grown up when Blaine stares up at him with wide eyes as he grabs him by the arm and keeps walking.
Blaine stumbles backwards a few steps before he drags his arm out of Sebastian’s grip to turn around and hurry along at his side. Sebastian pointedly ignores the jeering and laughter that echo after them when he sees that the back of Blaine’s neck is bright red and that he is refusing to look up from the ground.
They don’t say anything as they walk, Sebastian feeling inexplicably angry when he realizes that the park isn’t theirs anymore. A part of him wishes he had at least hit one of them, but all he remembers is his dad telling him that real men never use their fists to win an argument.
The wander down the road aimlessly, Blaine staring at his shoes and looking so upset that Sebastian doesn’t really know what to do so they just keep walking until eventually the words just trip off his tongue.
“Are you?”
Blaine jerks to a stop, his head whipping up to stare at Sebastian with eyes that are positively terrified. It is evident on his face that he knows exactly what Sebastian is talking about, his nervous reply of, “Am I what?” confirmation enough.
Sebastian quirks an eyebrow a little, folding his arms across his chest and trying his best to quell the voice in his thoughts that has been making him question things all Summer. He has been waking up sticky and covered in sweat more often, now, with only the vaguest of images fading from his brain that leave his heart pounding and his mouth dry.
Truth be told, Sebastian is kind of scared himself. There is something squirming in his stomach when he looks at Blaine sometimes and he doesn’t think that he should like looking at him quite as much as he does.
Blaine starts to take a step back from him, his eyes wide and nervous and a little bit sad too, and Sebastian doesn’t know why he even says it, but he blurts it out before he can stop himself, “I think I might be.”
There is a hitch of breath and then silence, Sebastian staring at Blaine as he shifts uncomfortably on his feet before -
“I am,” Blaine says to his feet, his voice low and nervous. “Cooper’s the only one that knows - I, those guys from the park, they started saying things about me at the end of last year at school.”
Sebastian shifts, eyes fixed on one particularly ridiculous tuft of hair that is curling obstinately away from Blaine’s forehead as he asks, “Are they the ones who pushed you over that time?”
Blaine shrugs a little, looking away as he mutters, “Yeah.”
For a moment Sebastian really wishes he had hit one of them now as he turns around, tugging at Blaine’s arm briefly and starts walking again. By the time they have circled the block the park is empty again, the other boys long gone, but they avoid the playground and instead lie down in the grass under some trees.
“It sucks,” Blaine says abruptly, after neither of them have spoken for what feels like forever.
Sebastian cracks open an eye from where he has been turning thoughts carefully over in his head, deciding what he wants to do with this sudden revelation that has crept into his head, and pushes up onto one elbow. Blaine’s forehead is furrowed in frustration and Sebastian doesn’t find it so weird, now, to admit that he finds it sort of cute when Blaine does that.
“It can’t be all bad,” he replies carefully.
Blaine blinks at him, obviously confused, and Sebastian pushes himself up until he is sitting, his heart hammering wildly in his chest as it catches up with the realization of what he thinks he wants to do.
“Being-” he starts to say, licking his lips awkwardly when he can’t get the word out and shrugs a little, “It can’t all be bad, right?”
Sebastian had kissed a girl last year. She was pretty and all the boys in his class had been extremely jealous, but he had privately thought that kissing was kind of overrated. The lip gloss she had been wearing had been sticky and tasted kind of weird and he had mostly just wanted it to end. He thinks that kissing Blaine, however, might be different.
He shuffles closer to Blaine who sits up immediately, his eyes going even wider as he asks, “What are you doing?”
“I just want to try something,” Sebastian replies as he shifts onto his knees, his eyes dipping curiously to Blaine’s mouth before he leans in and carefully presses his lips to Blaine’s.
Blaine’s lips are dry and soft, giving just slightly beneath the press of his own and something warm fills Sebastian’s chest when he sinks back onto his heels. Blaine stares back at him, a pretty splash of color rising high across his cheeks and his mouth just barely parted.
“That didn’t suck, did it?” Sebastian asks, not knowing exactly where the confidence in his voice is coming from or much at all, exactly, except for the fact that he most definitely wants to do that again.
“No,” Blaine replies as he starts to smile. “That definitely didn’t suck.”
--
They lose track of time.
They talk mostly, sitting with their backs to the trunk of the tree because whenever they actually look at each other Sebastian can’t help the grin that starts to spread across his face and Blaine starts blushing again. So they stare out over the playground and Sebastian tells Blaine about how his mother called to tell him they are going to be moving to Paris, and Blaine nods and listens intently even though the reminder that Sebastian is going to be leaving soon, only a week and half away now, is something they have been busily ignoring.
Blaine talks about Cooper leaving for college and Sebastian doesn’t understand, really, why Blaine is so worried about his brother not being around but he listens anyway.
They only notice how late it is when it starts to get hard to see each other when they occasionally glance over and Sebastian remembers that his dad had promised, "3.30 tops," that morning and it is night time now.
They get to their feet, surprised by just how dark it actually is as they cut across the grass towards the road, walking quickly when they realize the streetlights are already on and Blaine looks worried as he mutters, “Cooper’s going to kill me.”
They make it almost half a block before headlights sweep over them and a car screeches to a halt, a door flinging open and a boy that Sebastian doesn’t recognise yells, “Blaine!” as he scrambles out of the driver’s seat.
Sebastian stares as Blaine jerks around, eyes wide with confusion as he asks, “Cooper?”
Cooper is tall and good looking and Sebastian stares for a moment, mesmerized, until he yells, “Where the hell have you been? Mom and Dad are losing it, you little shit.”
Blaine looks horrified as Cooper stalks over, pausing when he finally seems to realize that there is someone else there and frowns as he asks, “Who’s this?”
“That’s Sebastian,” Blaine replies before he promptly adds, “I swear I didn’t realize how late it was Coop-”
Cooper rolls his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with a sigh before he mutters, “Just get in the car would you?”
Blaine blinks, glancing nervously over at Sebastian before starting to head for the car when Cooper adds a sharp, “You too, Blaine’s gangly friend. We’ll take you home first.”
Sebastian follows Blaine bewilderedly as he is shuffled into the passenger seat and Cooper drives the hundred feet or so until Sebastian tells him to stop. His dad’s car isn’t in the driveway.
Cooper stares the entire time that he is getting out of the car and Blaine follows to climb into the passenger seat, watching as they circle awkwardly around each other exchanging nervous goodbyes. Sebastian pauses when he gets to his doorway to watch Cooper’s car back out of the driveway and disappear back down the street, shivering a little as he realizes that it is definitely starting to get cold, before he opens the door.
His dad arrives half an hour later with a pizza box under one arm, apologizing for being so late but he got caught up in a meeting, and he hopes he feels like pizza.
--
Blaine isn’t at the park the next day, or the day after that.
And a part of Sebastian knows somehow, when the entire week passes without Blaine making another appearance, that it is because of that night.
Without Blaine, Westerville is the same as it was before: an endless string of disappointments and his father making him promises every morning that he never seems to keep.
When his father drops him off at the airport, clapping him on the shoulder and saying how great it was to have him around again, Sebastian doesn’t know why it is so hard to say goodbye to a place that he has never been happier to see the back of in his life.
--
It has to be some kind of cruel joke that all these years later, when he has mostly forgotten about the boy he kissed that summer under an oak tree when he was just eleven years old, that he walks straight back into Sebastian’s life.
Sebastian isn’t certain that it is him, at first. There have been a lot of boys since that first sweet, chaste kiss, and just because the pretty boy that the Warblers have all been gushing about since he transferred happens to share the same first name doesn’t mean much of anything.
He is pretty though, so Sebastian moves in, cataloguing the similarities from some faded checklist in the back of his head. This Blaine is short as well, though not the tiny figure from his memory, his dark hair carefully slicked back like some old Hollywood actor.
When Sebastian drags him into the midst of the performance he notes the length of his eyelashes, how pink his lips are and how devastating that smile is when he breaks into laughter, he notes the lean, compact shape of him and how those hideous pants he is wearing have one hidden bonus of showing off how fantastic his ass is.
He can’t help but watch him during the performance, showing off a little when he feels Blaine’s eyes are on him, because even if he isn’t that Blaine, he is still gorgeous and Sebastian thinks he would be more than happy to help him out of those rather bewildering clothes of his.
When he really knows, however, is when the performance is over, because he may not remember the specifics from all those years ago but he has never forgotten those eyes.
The other Warblers disperse, leaving them alone and Sebastian is seized by the strange, bewildering compulsion that had taken him over all those years ago as he extends his hand, his voice coming out strained as he calls Blaine’s name and he stares, his forehead furrowing in confusion.
“Sebastian Smythe,” he introduces himself as he grasps Blaine’s hand.
There is a moment of hesitation on Blaine’s face, his eyes going wide for a moment and Sebastian is almost certain that there is recognition there, before he tilts his head a little and asks, “Hi, are you a freshman?”
Sebastian stiffens, his eyebrows shooting upwards and he is unable to keep the disappointment from his face as he replies, shooting for something close to amused, “Do I look like a freshman?”
Blaine blushes, stuttering through surprise into a laugh as he looks down and away.
Sebastian watches the blush spread down his neck as he turns every bit of charm he has to coaxing Blaine into getting coffee with him, encouraged by just how easy it is to get Blaine to agree.
And maybe he doesn’t remember yet, but Sebastian is almost certain that if there is anything that could make his exile to Westerville a little more bearable, it might just be his Blaine.