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When Blaine walks into the choir room and finds Sebastian Smythe leaning against the piano, he wonders if this is divine intervention, or if he just entered hell.“What is he doing here?” he asks the room at large, tearing his eyes away from Sebastian, who is smirking in his uniform.Apparently, in the wake of their disqualification from Sectionals, the Warblers plan on doing a tour of charity concerts around Ohio and want the also still-disqualified New Directions to join. Finn looks poised to agree but pauses at Tina’s glare. Artie proclaims, “Oh, hell no,” and then chaos breaks loose as they try to explain to the new kids why Brittany keeps calling Sebastian “Evil Warbler.”Sebastian, for what it’s worth, just stares at Blaine, who decidedly does not meet his eyes.“Enough,” Finn eventually says. “Guys, c’mon. Isn’t this what glee is supposed to be about? Coming together and helping others?”“I thought it was supposed to be about singing,” Kitty mutters under her breath, and when Blaine turns his head to hide his laugh, he catches sight of Sebastian rolling his eyes.“You don’t have to decide now. When Frankenteen here finally wears you all down with his dimwitted platitudes, just let me know,” he says, pushing himself off the piano, and now Blaine can’t look away. It’s like watching a train wreck to see how Sebastian’s body unfolds into a standing position, his ankles uncrossing and his hands going into the pockets of his pants. His hair is longer now; he takes a moment to brush it out of his eyes as he looks down at Blaine. “Have Blaine text me.”Blaine thinks of his deleted contact and knows with sudden certainty that he has Sebastian’s number memorized anyway. He tastes artificial cherry and smells the hospital and thinks about throwing up all over Sebastian’s perfectly shined shoes.He doesn’t get the chance to open his mouth—either to reply or to puke—before Sam is ushering Sebastian out the room. He knows before the door even closes behind him that the New Directions will say yes, not just because Marley will pout at them or Finn will inevitably remind them that they’re nice people, but because that’s who the New Directions are.Now he just has to brace himself for what that actually means. Blaine feels all of fourteen when Sam finds him at the punching bag when the school day is over. He hands him a towel and his water bottle, and it’s like he’s looking at Wes, asking if he wants another outlet for his anger. Asking him to join the Warblers.“Dude where were you? Finn called a meeting, we decided we’ll do the concert,” and it’s the same thing, isn’t it? Everything brings him back to them.“I knew you would. I was just—” he cuts off, waving his hand around him, at the gym and his sweat and his badly wrapped knuckles.“You don’t have to be the one to text the Warblers, you know,” Sam says, in all his kindness. “Kitty’s friend from church is a Warbler. Some junior kid named James. Or maybe they’re cousins, I don’t really know because she started fighting with Joe, like, two seconds after she told us that.”Blaine kind of sees the resemblance. “I got it.” He’s still their New Rachel. He has to step up and be the team captain. Even if it means texting Sebastian.Sam looks at him for a long moment, considering. Then he slaps him on the shoulder. “Okay, then.” Blaine puts it off all through a shower and dinner with his mom and his AP Chemistry homework. When he’s done, it’s still early in the night, and there’s no reasonable excuse left. He types Sebastian’s number and tries not to think too much about it when he sends the text off: We’ll do it.He gets a smiley face in return. Apparently, his response warrants Sebastian marching all of the Warblers into their choir room after school. Blaine is wholly unprepared for the sight of all of them, perfect posture and pressed uniforms and Nick’s guarded smile and the way Trent won’t even look at him. Tina slips a hand into his and squeezes.Sebastian brings up the rear, smirking at Blaine the second he steps inside the choir room, like it’s still hey, Blaine, hello, everyone else. Blaine’s mouth runs dry, but he doesn’t look away. It’s easier to watch Sebastian than Jeff or Ethan or Meatbox. His friends, who stand across the room from him, like it’s a scrimmage again. Like they might stand by as a slushie gets thrown at him, or, worse, welcome him back into their fold.Poor Finn is entirely out of his element, trying to coach all of them into seats in the face of Sebastian’s smirk and everyone else’s entirely unsubtle glances at Blaine, which he does his best to avoid. It takes Sam and Kitty standing on either side of Finn with crossed arms and unimpressed glares to finally get everyone to settle down.At the front of the room, Finn claps his hands. “We should talk about a setlist, I guess?”The room immediately erupts back into chaos.Unique and Trent get into a screaming argument over who should take lead on a Christina Aguilera number he knows will end up getting vetoed. Nick and Finn are writing out a performance schedule on the board, the former surprisingly patient as Finn keeps dropping the markers. Kitty and Brittany seem to be teaching Jeff how to do pirouettes in the corner. The rest of the underclassmen appear to be doing the actual assignment of talking about a setlist, even though Ryder and Jake are getting increasingly vehement in their attempts to oppose Skylar’s a capella suggestions, and at least two of the Warblers are too busy flirting with Sugar to be of any use.Sebastian appears in Blaine’s field of vision suddenly, long fingers wrapped around a Lima Bean takeaway cup. Blaine takes it on autopilot, some distant corner of his brain laughing that Sebastian had snuck away in the middle of the chaos to get them each a coffee. He sips it and tries not to let the cinnamon on his tongue turn to bitterness as he suppresses every past memory of time together at the Lima Bean.“We should do a number together.”Blaine looks up in surprise. “What?” His voice is hoarse. He hasn’t said a word in what has probably been well over an hour.“We could sing together,” Sebastian repeats, still smirking, though the corners of his mouth are soft and give away something earnest, something hopeful. Blaine is unsettled by how well he can still read Sebastian; doubly so at the thought of Sebastian doing the same. “No Katy Perry, though.”“No One Direction, then,” he spits back, gratified by the crinkle of Sebastian’s nose.“And for the love of god, no Hey Monday” Nick says, suddenly appearing at Sebastian’s side. Blaine almost hits him before remembering he probably shouldn’t do that. He doesn’t know what terms they’re on anymore. “Could the two of you come take a look at this schedule?”Sebastian extends a hand to help Blaine up. Against his better judgment, he takes it.“Sing with me,” Sebastian whispers again, leaning in close to Blaine’s ear before dropping his hand.Blaine is helpless to say, “Okay.”Sebastian’s grin before he turns to Nick and Finn is blinding. Blaine feels sick all over again. He makes it through rehearsal, gripping his coffee every time he hears a familiar laugh and sticking to Sebastian’s side. He spends the weekend turning the radio off every time a song comes on that he thinks he and Sebastian would kill as a duet. They’ve never really sung together, but it’s easy to imagine Sebastian’s slight rasp wrapping around his own voice.. He catches himself in the middle of arranging a Billy Joel mash-up he just knows they’d sound good on and slams his computer closed.On Sunday, he calls Sam, who shows up with Tina in tow. They play Mario Kart until Tina gets bored of beating them, and the boys switch to Call of Duty as Tina reads the smuttiest parts of some fanfiction aloud. They raid the pantry for snacks and then drive to Applebee’s for dinner, Tina’s hair blowing through the open windows of Sam’s truck.Blaine knows he’s in trouble when Tina and Sam start a silent but entirely unsubtle conversation between them in the middle of Blaine sneaking some of Sam’s fries. “Okay, you two. Spill.”“What’s with you and the Warblers?” Tina asks. Sam is sheepishly depositing some of his fries onto Blaine’s empty plate.“I have no idea what you mean.”Tina makes a face. “They’re being weird about you.”Blaine thinks he’s going to be sick. He’s saved by Sam saying, “Well, they’re always a little weird. Like what kind of name is Meatbox? And some of the younger ones are, like, batshit. That one kid who looks like a whiter version of you? Definite blazer fetish for sure, he kept going on about—”“Sam,” Tina interrupts.“Sorry. It’s just that you’re also kind of being weird about them.”Blaine thinks about brushing it off with another denial, but between Tina’s crossed arms and the comforting press of Sam’s shoulder against his, he knows it’s a lost cause. “I just don’t know if we’re friends anymore.”Tina’s face softens. “They are, Blaine. It’s so obvious they love you. They wouldn’t shut up about you, even though you were just across the room.”“It’s a little creepy, actually,” says Sam, ever helpful.“I just don’t feel like I deserve it.”Blaine hates that he’s made Tina and Sam look this sad.“Don’t do this again, man,” Sam says, wrapping his arm around Blaine. Across the table, Tina reaches out her hands and grabs both of his. “You gotta stop villainizing yourself.”“What do you think you even did wrong?” Tina asks.“I left them when I transferred here. I thought I’d be better at keeping in touch, but we all let show choir stuff get in the way. And then again, this year. I told them I was going to transfer back. Trent was already trying to arrange something with his roommate so we could room together, and then I just abandoned them. Again.”“You’re not being fair to yourself, Blaine.”“Sam’s right,” Tina says, squeezing his hands. “Look, I know it hasn’t been perfect, but don’t you think this is an opportunity to be friends with them again?”“Some of them are kind of cool,” says Sam, stealing one of his own fries back from Blaine’s plate. “Except for that one kid who’s really weird about the blazers.”Blaine laughs, a little watery and a little wobbly. Tina squeezes his hands again then lets him go. They spend the rest of the night talking about easier things, and Blaine forgets about everything else, for just a little longer. If having the Warblers in McKinley’s choir room was uncanny, it’s nothing compared to the feeling of seeing the New Directions in the Warblers commons.Finn is leaning awkwardly against the Council table, horrifyingly working together with Sebastian to run through the shortlist of song suggestions that have been proposed. The New Directions are complying with the Warbler-esque voting process, sprawled over the couches Blaine became a person again on. Blaine, for his part, isn’t paying attention at all, too busy staring at an empty table that once held an antique lamp he knocked over, jumping onto the table in the middle of a Gwen Stefani number they never ended up performing.Wes had threatened to ban him from rehearsal if he didn’t stop jumping on furniture. It lasted all of a week and a half before Blaine was jumping from couch to couch, and Wes had thrown his hands up and proclaimed him a lost cause.“‘I Always Knew’ by the Vaccines,” Finn reads off the list in his hands, and Blaine looks up. It had been one that he thought he and Sebastian—“We’re doing that one,” Sebastian cuts in, with no room for argument in his voice. “I’m singing it with Blaine.”The room is silent at that, everyone turning to look at him for what Blaine thinks is the first time since they’d arrived.“All in favor raise their hand?” Finn says awkwardly.Jeff is the first to raise his hand, followed shortly by a thoughtful looking Sam. Marley raises her hand next, then Trent and Andrew at the same time, and the proposed duet makes its way onto the setlist in no time.Finn bangs the gavel, and Blaine can’t take it anymore. He walks out of the room, stepping into a familiar hallway he’d danced up and down through a million times before. Before the door closes, he hears the whispering and decides he doesn’t want to know what they’re saying at all.No time at all passes before the door opens and closes again. He hears the click of someone’s shoes on the floor and hopes, briefly, that it’s Sam or Tina, even if he knows the truth. Sebastian stops just behind him.“Would it be so awful to sing a duet with me?” Sebastian’s joking, but in the otherwise silent hall, Blaine hears the genuine question.“That’s not it, and you know it.”“I know.” Sebastian takes another step, and Blaine feels him, closer to his back. “I might not know the whole story, but I know parts of it, and I apologize for what I’ve been responsible for.”Blaine thinks about the last time Sebastian apologized to him. That means nothing to me and their Regionals handshake and the way they never really spoke about it anymore after that. “Apology accepted.”Behind him, a sharp inhale. A slow exhale. “Sing the song with me, then. Everyone voted yes.”Blaine finally turns. Sebastian’s standing with his hands in his pockets, bright green eyes locked onto his. “It’s you, oh, it’s always you?” he sings, incredulous.Sebastian has the grace to look a little sheepish. “It can be just a song, Blaine. You know we’d sound great on it.”It’s never just a song, Blaine thinks, and Sebastian knows it too. Still, he says, “Fine.” Sebastian’s grin grows, genuine and wide, and Blaine can’t stand him. “Pull my leg, why don’t you, Smythe.”“Only if you ask nicely,” Sebastian replies, that smile that drives Blaine mad still on his face. He walks back towards the common room, already desperate to get away from Sebastian, who just falls into step, half a pace behind him.Somehow, even with Sebastian gone, Finn has managed to command both show choirs’ attention long enough to put together a setlist, though he looks a little lost now as the room squabbles among themselves over who can claim what song. Blaine notes with some satisfaction that the New Directions girls managed to win a whole song just for them and is pleasantly surprised to see all of the Warblers and New Directions seniors’ names listed next to another number.“Boo,” Sebastian whispers into his ear, “I was hoping to get ‘We’re All In This Together’ on there for the senior number instead. I bet we could have made it kind of campy,” and Blaine’s laughing loudly before he even thinks about it.The room drops into silence, everyone turning to look at him for the second time that day. Finn’s mouth is hanging open, and Tina is glaring at them both, Nick next to her doing the exact same thing.Next to him, Sebastian is shaking in barely concealed glee. Blaine maturely doesn’t elbow him. “Me and Sebastian can do the duet.”“Great,” says Finn. “If I say we’re doing it a capella, is anyone going to throw a tantrum?”Across the room, Jake and Ryder look sheepish. Blaine is a little impressed. He ends up driving back to Lima with Tina, Kitty, Marley, and Unique in his car, which he realizes is a mistake when Tina turns the volume down in the middle of a Lady Gaga song to allow Kitty in the middle seat to lean forward with a terrible smile and ask, “What’s up with you and the Boyband Warbler?”Blaine takes a moment to appreciate that at least they’ve moved on from calling him the Evil Warbler before he immediately wants to throw himself through the windshield. “Nothing. We’re just singing a song.”“That’s not what Cousin Jimmy says,” Kitty sing-songs, and Blaine is appalled to see even Tina nodding along in the front seat, eager for gossip, even though he knows she still doesn’t like Sebastian.“I don’t know what’s going on,” he says, “A little more than nothing. A little less than something.”Marley ooohs in the back, and Tina fills the underclassman girls in on last year’s Warbler debacle as Blaine loses himself in the drive.When they reach the Mckinley parking lot, Tina hangs on a moment longer while the younger girls clamber out of his car and into their own rides home. She looks at him; he decidedly does not look at her.“That is going to end terribly,” she proclaims.“You wanted me to be friends with them again!”“Yeah, the rest of them! The ones who were actually your friends, not the meerkat who put you in the hospital!”“Wasn’t his fault,” Blaine says, tiredly. “It’s just a song, Tina.”“When is it ever just anything?”It’s exactly what Blaine is thinking, but it’s rude of her to point it out.“Why is it so easy for you to get along with him, anyway, instead of the rest of them? You’re all avoiding each other like the plague. The underclassmen think it’s weird.”“I don’t know. We’ve always just been like that.”“Like what?”“Easy,” he says, even as he feels sick. “It’s always been easy to be around Sebastian.”Tina is silent.“Do you know the first thing Kurt said to me when I told him I cheated on him? It was Sebastian, wasn’t it. Not a question, but a statement.”“You can’t really blame him for thinking that.”“I don’t. I blame myself.”Tina’s hand lands on his arm, which is still gripping the steering wheel, even though he’s parked. “You can’t really do that either.”“But I do.” Blaine finally turns to look at her. She looks devastated. He hates himself a little more for putting that look on her face.“Well, I think,” Tina says, bravely, “that you deserve a little happiness.”Blaine leans over to kiss her cheek. “Don’t we all, TT?”“Touché. Blainey Days.” She smiles then, real and wide, before climbing out his car.Blaine drives the rest of the way home in silence, a little scared to turn on the radio and hear another song he could sing with Sebastian, a list forming in his head he’s starting to fear will never end. He hums the intro to “I Always Knew” over and over again, smiling a little more, each time. Sebastian texts him that evening during dinner, asking for his opinion about the red sweater vests Dalton offers as part of the uniform. Blaine wants to ignore him. The audacity, to text him like they’re friends again.He replies, late at night and already in his pajamas. Too much Dalton red would look terrible against Sebastian’s complexion. They rehearse twice a week: Monday afternoons at Dalton and Thursdays at McKinley, and Blaine spends them watching from a corner like he’s having an out-of-body experience, until the moment Sebastian grabs his hand at the start of every number to pull him into the fray.Blaine’s singing background for most of the numbers, by virtue of completely spacing out or running away while they were allocating the songs. He’s got the duet with Sebastian and another one with Tina that she’d wrangled him into and the senior song, an arrangement of Avril Lavigne’s “Here’s to Never Growing Up” that he’s been laboring over for days.“Blaine,” calls Sam, and he looks up from pages of blank sheet music. “Come rehearse with us.”“I haven’t finished the arrangement yet.”“Britt and Sebastian have some choreography, though.” Blaine feels a little betrayed, even if he has no right to be. He just wants a few more moments before he has to stand in line with Nick and Trent and the people he once loved more than his own family and sing a song about never growing up with them.Horrifyingly, Sebastian steps in next to Sam, and they gang up on him. Between Sam’s sad smile and Sebastian’s outstretched hand, he can’t say no. “What’s wrong with you?” Sebastian asks afterwards, when everyone is packed up and practically out the door.“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”“Yes, you do, Anderson. Why are you acting like you’re allergic to performing?”“I’m not!”“Don’t bullshit me.” Sebastian stomps after Blaine, down the hallway to the parking lot, and Blaine’s just had about enough.“I’m not bullshitting you! Maybe you should tell your show choir to stop acting like they’re allergic to performing with me.”Sebastian snags Blaine’s arm with enough force to spin him around so they’re facing each other. “What?”“You heard me.”“They’re not acting like that.”“Nick hasn’t said one word to me that isn’t about the schedule or the setlist. Trent won’t look me in the eye.”“That’s not—““Don’t say it’s not true. You know it is.” Blaine’s breathing heavy, he realizes, short shallow breaths that make him feel like he’ll never get enough air in his lungs again. Like he’s in a parking lot, getting kicked in the stomach. “Look, I’m sorry for ratting you guys out about the whole steroid thing. I’m sorry I left them for McKinley. Twice. Hell, I’m even sorry for doing ‘Candles’ at Regionals all those years ago. But we were friends, once, and half of them are acting like they don’t fucking know me.”“They’re scared.” Blaine scoffs. “Not of you. They’re scared of hurting you.”Blaine is quiet for a moment. Sees the honesty in Sebastian’s eyes and feels something awful well within him. He’s in another parking lot, gripping his eye and hearing familiar footsteps walk away. It isn’t fair to say, but, “They already have.”Sebastian grips tighter on his arm, but Blaine rips it away, stalking down the rest of the hallway to the parking lot and doesn’t stop until he’s in his car.He turns the radio on. A One Direction song starts playing. He turns the radio off. In the wake of his and Kurt’s breakup, he had turned the Sebastian of it all over and over again in his mind until it started to make a semblance of sense. It was Sebastian, wasn’t it?, and artificial cherry, and a heart-shaped eyepatch, and just give me a chance, and phone calls before the sun had risen on the way to school, and a flirty nickname Sebastian hasn’t called him again. The way Sebastian sometimes feels like only real thing in his life, even when he hurts him.Which he hasn’t, yet. Not since he apologized the first time.And the truth is, he knows he’s being unfair about the rest of the Warblers. His own guilt about transferring is intertwined with the way they’d left him with rock salt in his eye and the way they’d stood behind Hunter, and it’s all inseparable from the sense memories Blaine has of entering Dalton the first time, bruised ribs still healing. Of being broken and alone and being built back up.It’s been a couple of years now, but he still carries his grief in his ribs. He’s more than a little scared, these days, that Nick and Jeff and Trent can see right through him, all the way to the younger boy they once knew. Two days later, Sebastian calls him.The sun isn’t quite up yet, but Blaine is, making coffee and contemplating his cereal choices. He picks up on autopilot, voice still rough with sleep. “Hey, Seb.”“If Skylar and Trent get in one more fucking argument about the uniform, I might just kill them both to be done with it,” Sebastian says.“What happened to ‘Good morning, how are you, Blaine?’”“Good morning, B.” Blaine can hear his smile over the phone. It’s infuriating. “Meatbox and Trent might be dead by the end of the day, do you have any tips for staying out of jail?”Blaine hums, awake enough to be pleased, too sleepy to be angsty about it. “Distract them with something else. An impromptu performance. A dance workshop. It works most of the time.”Sebastian chatters away as Blaine stirs his coffee. It’s like junior year all over again, Blaine living vicariously through Sebastian as he complains about the Warblers’ dance ability (or supposed lack thereof), the history teachers at Dalton, the under-seasoned food. He imagines himself in Dalton’s dining hall, drinking coffee across the table from Sebastian, who is plowing through a stack of pancakes at an alarming rate.“You’re quiet this morning,” Sebastian says, interrupting his own rant about his AP Chemistry lab partner.“It’s a quiet sort of morning,” replies Blaine.“They miss you,” says Sebastian, apropos of nothing. “The Warblers.”In the early morning light, the truth spills out of Blaine. “I miss them too.”“I know you’re scared,” Sebastian says softly. Blaine can hear the bustle of the dining hall in the background. “I might not know why, but you’re scared to reach out to them. I just want you to know that you can.”“I’ve been terrible to them.”“Funnily enough, they don’t seem to care. They just want you to stop pushing them away. They want to be there for you, but they don’t know how. You just have to let them.”Blaine takes a sip of his coffee. It’s the same thing Sam and Tina have been telling him this whole time. “I can try.”“They worship you.” Blaine can imagine the face Sebastian is pulling. “It’s a little disturbing.”“And you don’t?” Blaine teases.He can hear the smile in Sebastian’s voice. “Well,” he drawls, long and slow, the end of it merging into the sound of Blaine’s laugh. He finishes the arrangement of Avril Lavigne minutes before rehearsal is due to start and sends a mass text, asking the seniors of both show choirs to meet him in the auditorium instead of the choir room. As he waits, he sits behind the piano and takes a deep, steadying breath.They come in all together from the direction of the choir room. Ethan’s pushing Artie’s wheelchair. Sam is sandwiched between Trent and Nick, deep in a comic book debate Blaine will only hear the aftermath of. Brittany has an arm wrapped around Meatbox, chattering into his ear, and Tina’s got her hand tucked into Jeff’s elbow, smiling softly as he whispers at her. Sebastian brings up the rear, raising an eyebrow at the back of Tina’s head.Blaine doesn’t know when they’d all gotten to know each other so familiarly. He just knows it happened, and he wasn’t there, too busy burying himself in his own head.“Did you finish the piece?” Trent asks.“Of course he’s finished the piece,” Sebastian says, and he’s talking to Trent, but his eyes are locked on Blaine. Like every time they’re in a room with other people, it will always be hey Blaine, hello everyone else. Blaine looks away, cheeks burning.Nick leans forward. “Let’s have it then.”“It’s a six-part harmony,” Blaine explains, passing out the sheet music. “Everyone’s got a few lines. I worked it out so it’s more or less evenly split, and it shouldn’t be too difficult to work into the choreo.”Jeff looks up at him. “It’s perfect.”“We haven’t even sung it yet.”“It’ll be perfect,” Tina says, eyes already watering. Sam reaches over Brittany to hit her in the arm. “Can we sing it?”Blaine takes a deep breath. He’s weirdly nervous. It’s just his friends. It’s just a silly Avril Lavigne song. “Right. Let’s sing.”By the time rehearsal is over, Blaine thinks that maybe Jeff and Tina were right. It’s perfect. It’s the best arrangement he’s done, and he’s only a little mad that it’s for a song about singing Radiohead and yelling, “Kiss my ass.”“What did I tell you?” Sebastian says, over the sound of everyone whooping about completing their first sing-through. “Flawless.”Blaine looks at Sebastian, and this time, he doesn’t run away.“Let’s get dinner to celebrate,” Ethan says, grinning.“Breadstix!” Sam and Brittany yell together, and Trent looks a little horrified. Blaine aches as they talk among themselves to coordinate rides, but Sebastian’s there at his side, like he always is these days.“We don’t have to go,” he whispers, fingers brushing Blaine’s shoulder. “We could always get dinner together somewhere else, if it’s too much.”It is too much, but Blaine looks up at Sebastian and takes a deep breath. “You just don’t want to go to Breadstix.”Sebastian makes a face. “I’ve heard it’s worse than Olive Garden.”“It is. But you’re giving me a ride.”“The things I do for you, Anderson,” Sebastian sighs, but they follow the rest of them out the auditorium anyways. They squeeze into a booth at Breadstix. Blaine ends up sandwiched between Sam and Sebastian, cozy and warm enough that the rounds of laughter washing over him don’t hurt so badly. Sebastian has a hand resting on his knee, low enough on his leg to be family friendly, if it wasn’t for the way he burns hot under the pads of his fingers and can’t really focus on anything else. Tina and Artie are eyeing them both suspiciously.When the food comes, Sebastian hits the side of his glass with his spoon, effortlessly drawing everyone’s attention. “Gentlemen. Blonde girl. Asian girl. May I make a toast?”Tina flips him off, but she’s smiling, even if she’s trying not to show it. Blaine looks around the table, and with sudden clarity, he can see exactly how Sebastian managed to become captain of the Warblers, both the first time and the second time, reclaiming his title from Hunter.“Warblers, I believe I once promised you a nationals trophy,” Sebastian continues, looking down a little as he does. “While it looks like that dream is well and truly over, I did also deliver on the other thing: Blaine Anderson at our side, once again.”Artie and Sam start booing, good-natured, as Blaine blushes. “Sebastian—”Sebastian turns to look at him, and it’s too much, the full force of his gaze, when they’re inches away from each other. “God knows why,” Sebastian teases, breath fluttering across Blaine’s cheekbone, “but some of these people really care about you.”Blaine knows this is the moment. Sam and Tina and Sebastian have all told him he could have them all as his friends, if he just let himself. He just has to look around the table and say, “I’m sorry.”“Shut up,” Ethan says from the other side of Sebastian. “What are you even sorry for?”Blaine doesn’t get a chance to answer. The rest of the senior Warblers chime in with a similar sentiment until the space around their booth sounds like an old Warbler meeting, when Thad would say something outrageous. He’s laughing before he even knows it, gesturing wildly to try to get them to calm down as the coat of guilt he’s been wearing all these weeks starts to fall away.It’s Brittany who gets them to shut up, in the end, banging her thankfully empty mug on the table like a gavel. Blaine shoots her a smile as he says, “Okay. Okay. I’m really happy to be at your sides as well. All of your sides.”“To Blaine Anderson,” Sebastian says, eyes glittering and smiling earnestly. “The only man who could ever pull off an a capella cover of Avril Lavigne.”“Amen,” says Artie. Meatbox whoops obnoxiously.Halfway through his meal, Blaine feels Sebastian’s hand slip into his. He continues eating with his other hand like it’s no big deal at all. Nick is in the middle of telling an outrageous story, and nobody looks twice at them as Blaine whispers into Sebastian’s ear, “Thank you.”“You’re welcome, killer,” and Blaine feels so happy he thinks he might combust. Sebastian drives him home, which is to say they take the long way, fifteen miles in the opposite direction, Top 40s blaring from the radio of Sebastian’s fancy car.They don’t talk. Blaine’s too busy singing along, letting his fingers hang out of the open sunroof, even if it’s far too cold. Sebastian’s too busy watching him, then the road, then him again in rapid succession.Sebastian parks in an empty playground, cutting the engine in the middle of a Kesha song. Blaine’s still humming the chorus, not wanting the moment to end.“You look happy,” Sebastian says.“I am.” He hasn’t stopped smiling since they left Breadstix.“Good.” They’re quiet again, watching the swings in the wind. “That’s all I want for you, Blaine.”“All you want?” he asks back, half teasing, half serious.Sebastian shoves him instead of answering.They run around the playground for an hour, even though it’s late, and they still have school the next morning. They play tag like they’re children again, Sebastian complaining the whole time that Blaine has an unfair advantage, still being kid-sized. Blaine pushes him into the sandpit.On the drive home, Blaine asks, “Are you happy?”Sebastian glances at him. In the darkness, Blaine can’t read his expression. “I’m getting there.”“What would make you happy?”Sebastian smiles, the wide, genuine grin that’s been driving Blaine mad since this whole thing started again. “You know, B.”He does. The next morning, Sam and Tina ambush him at his locker.“Where did you and Sebastian go after dinner last night?” Tina asks.“We just drove around a bit.”“Is that code for hooking up?”Blaine hits Sam with his binder.As they walk to class, Tina says, “I hate to say it, but I’m actually kind of looking forward to these concerts with the Warblers.”“Your friends are kinda cool, Blaine. You’ve been holding out on us.”The sting Blaine expects to feel never comes. He says, a little wobbly still, “Maybe I just wanted to keep you guys to myself a little longer.”Sam wraps an arm around his shoulder. Tina tucks her hand into Blaine’s elbow. “We’ll always be yours,” she says, then yelps when Sam reaches around Blaine and tugs her ponytail.Blaine loves them. He could get used to being this happy. Sebastian keeps calling in the morning. He gets coffee for them in the middle of rehearsal, to Finn’s utter bewilderment. He sits by Blaine every chance he gets, bony elbow digging into Blaine’s side, knee pressed into his thigh.It’s driving Blaine crazy, and everyone seems to notice it. Worse, now that they’re friends again, they call him out on it. After two weeks of Nick’s wiggling eyebrows and Jeff’s giggling and Tina’s pointed comments and Sam’s loud ones, Blaine is contemplating murder.The worst part is the way Sebastian notices it too. They don’t talk about it. That’s the part that really drives Blaine mad. On the way to Dalton for rehearsal, Marley asks what everyone is doing for Valentine’s Day. Blaine runs a stop sign, which makes Kitty and Unique start cackling.“Yeah, Blainey, any plans for Valentine’s?” Tina asks, too sweetly, from the front seat. “Any inappropriate serenades you’d like to sing?”Blaine is going to strangle a Warbler or twelve. “Who told you about that?”“Jeff,” Tina says through her laughter. “And then Nick and Meatbox told everyone else.”Blaine can probably take the three of them. “No serenades. I kind of forgot Valentine’s Day was this week, anyway.”“But I thought it was your favorite holiday?” Marley says, frowning.Blaine stops himself from asking who told her that. The Warblers are all terrible gossips, he decides. “I don’t think it is anymore.”Marley looks devastated. He makes panicked eye contact with Unique, who luckily gets the hint and distracts Marley by asking her about her own Valentine’s Day plans with Jake.“No plans with Sebastian, then?” Tina whispers.Blaine whispers back, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” When he enters the Warbler commons, the first thing he does is stand on the nearest table and reprimand them all for being terrible gossips.“But you’re just such an interesting person, Blainey,” Nick says, helping him down from the table. Jeff, watching, makes a weird face.An arm wraps around his waist as Nick drops his hand. Blaine is utterly unsurprised when Sebastian drawls close to his ear, “Maybe if you grew some balls, you could have an interesting life too, Duval.”“Shut up,” Nick mutters. Jeff’s jaw is dropped, and he’s glaring at Sebastian.“What’s this all about?” Blaine whispers up into Sebastian’s ear.“Tell you later.” When rehearsal ends, Blaine gives his keys to Unique and lets her drive the girls back to Lima. She herds them into the parking lot as they fall over each other giggling at the sight of Sebastian waiting for him. Blaine does not want to know what they’re saying.“Want to grab a coffee, killer?”Blaine turns and his mouth dries up at the sight of Sebastian slumped in a leather arm chair, legs sprawled lazily in front of him. He’s smirking like he knows exactly what’s going through Blaine’s head. “We could have coffee.”Sebastian leans forward, laughter written all over his face. “Come here, B.”Helpless, Blaine does. Sebastian takes his hand, tugs him closer and closer until Blaine’s standing between his legs. His other hand is shaking. He only notices because he’s lifted it to rest on Sebastian’s shoulder, his thumb resting against the side of his neck.“You know, the whole bashful schoolboy thing you have going on is still kind of doing it for me.”“Sebastian,” Blaine scolds.“What?” Sebastian asks. “I’m allowed to say it now, aren’t I?”“You not,” Blaine says, but he’s lying.Sebastian laughs, like he knows. He brings Blaine’s up to his hand and kisses the inside of his wrist. “Coffee, killer.”Blaine wants to say no. He kind of wants to stay here in this room, just the two of him. But he pulls Sebastian forward and lets him lead them to his car.They get coffee and stay an appropriate distance away from each other, no matter how much Blaine wants Sebastian to touch him. Sebastian tells him about the mess Nick has been making of Jeff’s feelings and Ethan’s new girlfriend.It’s only when he’s home that Blaine remembers he was going to ask Sebastian about his plans for Valentine’s Day. He takes it as a sign that he’s better off not knowing. On Valentine’s Day, Blaine brings two dozen roses to school and spends the day hunting his fellow glee club members down and handing one to each of them.Tina squeals loud enough to get reprimanded by a passing teacher. Kitty and Brittany both kiss him on the cheek. Sugar kisses him on the mouth, Blaine laughing as she does so. Ryder looks a little confused but claps him on the shoulder with a “Thanks, man” anyway. Joe tucks it into his hair. Sam picks him up and spins him in a circle in the hallway until they get yelled at by Sue Sylvester herself.By the time they’ve gathered in the choir room, waiting for the Warblers, everyone has a rose. Even Finn, who puts his in a mug from Marley on his desk. Sam and Blaine are trying to coerce Tina into telling them her Valentine’s Day plans for after rehearsal, which she’s being astonishingly closed-lipped about, when the Warblers make an entrance.Sebastian bursts through one of the choir room doors with the Warblers behind, already singing, and Blaine has a brief moment to wonder if this was what he was like all sophomore year before he’s too flustered to say anything else.They’re singing “Troublemaker” by Olly Murs. It should be terrible, the way they’re all swinging their hips and nodding along to the beat at the front of the choir room, but Blaine can’t take his eyes off Sebastian as he does it. There’s a brief moment of incredulity as Skylar takes the Flo Rida rap, directing it towards a horrified-looking Kitty, but Blaine finds he’s charmed by the performance, overall.The song ends with the Warblers in perfect formation, arms clasped in a triangle fanning out behind Sebastian, who’s smirking at Blaine. “Classy enough for you this time, Anderson?”“Not even close,” he laughs. Blaine kisses Sebastian in the McKinley parking lot.Sebastian kisses back, wrapping his arm around Blaine’s waist immediately, like it belongs there. Blaine fiercely hopes that one day it will. Sebastian deepens the kiss, and Blaine stops thinking at all.When they pull away, Sebastian’s breath fans warm against the bridge of Blaine’s nose. “Happy Valentine’s Day, B.”Blaine hates him. He’s smiling so widely it feels like his face will break. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Seb.”It might just be his favorite holiday again. Unsurprisingly, they don’t really talk about it.To be fair, their first concert is approaching fast, scheduled for the first week of March before their spring break. Sebastian makes Trent and then Marley cry while drilling choreography, which means Sam and Ethan have to stop Jake from punching him. Finn, their obligatory adult, gets put in charge of logistics, but he starts looking like he’s going to pass out every time he opens his laptop to an email about the bus rental or venue booking.Blaine, for the most part, is in his element. He teaches the New Directions the basics of a capella and runs them through their parts until Ryder complains that he’s started humming it in his sleep. And then he runs them through it a couple times more. He’s hit his stride since “Here’s to Never Growing Up” and tweaks the arrangement of “More Than a Feeling” to really showcase his and Tina’s voices.Unique takes over his carpool, which leaves Blaine free to hang around Dalton after rehearsals. Sebastian buys him coffee, which is left to grow cold, more often than not, when they spend more time making out in Sebastian’s bed than drinking it.The rose Blaine gave Sebastian dries on his desk, carefully placed in indirect sunlight. It makes Blaine smile every time he sees it.Blaine spends the night one Monday, the week of their concert. Nick’s gone who knows where, apparently owing Sebastian a favor. Blaine dances to Arctic Monkeys as Sebastian tries finishing an AP Chemistry lab report, giving up the minute Blaine hooks his chin over his shoulder to sing, “Do me a favor and tell me to go away.”“Do me a favor and go away,” says Sebastian, spinning in his chair and holding Blaine at his hips. “You’re terrible.”Blaine grins, heart pounding as he says, “You like me anyway.”Sebastian kisses him, Blaine falling willingly into his lap.He shows up late to his first period the next morning, still in yesterday’s clothes. Artie high-fives him. Blaine wakes up Saturday morning to a phone call from Sebastian. “Seb?”“Did you just wake up?”“It is,” Blaine squints at his phone screen, “five-thirty in the morning. On a Saturday.”“I always wake up early the day of performances,” Sebastian says, apologetic. “You can go back to bed.”It’s a no-brainer to Blaine, graced with the sleep-rough voice of the other boy. He settles into his pillows and demands, “Keep talking.”They talk until the sun rises, everything from the numbers they’re most worried to perform to the possums in Blaine’s backyard and the snow finally melting from Dalton’s grounds. Sebastian’s voice echoes weirdly, like he’s sitting in the stairwell so as not to disturb his still-sleeping roommate, and Blaine’s whispering, to avoid waking his parents.In a quiet moment, Sebastian starts, “Blaine?”“Yeah?”“I’m glad we get to do this. Together.”Blaine smiles into the receiver. “Me too.”Sebastian sounds almost shy as he says, “See you later?”“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”“We can meet at the Lima Bean before.”“That impatient to see me, Smythe?” teases Blaine.Earnestly, Sebastian says, “Always.” Sebastian drops into the seat in front of Blaine with his own drink and a refill for Blaine’s, humming “I Always Knew.” Blaine smiles at him and then, just because he can, holds Sebastian’s hand across the table.“You’re excited for this performance,” Blaine notes.A flush spreads across Sebastian’s cheeks. Blaine is so incredibly charmed. “I am. I know it’s just a little gig for a bunch of kids and old people, but I think it’ll be fun. We’ve got a whole set, not just a couple of songs for a competition. It’ll be nice to showcase everyone’s talent.”“It’s cute,” Blaine says, just to watch Sebastian’s blush darken. “You’re cute when you’re this excited.”“You’re terrible.” Sebastian points at Blaine, who swats his hand away. “You shouldn’t make fun of the guy who likes you.”Delight runs through Blaine, sudden and golden. “You like me?”Sebastian looks away. “Shut up. You know I do.”“Say it again, Seb.”“You’re terrible.”Blaine tugs at Sebastian’s hand until the other boy looks at him again. “The other bit.”“Say it back first.”“I like you too, Sebastian.”Sebastian buries his head in the hand that Blaine’s not holding hostage. “This is so not how I was going to tell you.”“You had a plan?” Blaine can’t stop grinning.“I was going to tell you after the performance. Take you out to dinner before Motta’s party and everything.”“You still can.”Sebastian frowns at him. “No. You’ve ruined it, now. Terrible, like I said.”Blaine kisses Sebastian’s hand.“Fine. I’ll still take you to dinner, and then we can get shitfaced on peach-flavored vodka.”“And you can tell me you like me after the performance, too.”Sebastian hits his arm. Blaine takes his other hand and kisses it too. The performance is a success.Finn looks like he might pass out in relief when he gets them back on the bus after, though that might be because the freshmen Warblers had all hugged him backstage until Ethan and Nate had to start dragging them onto the bus. Sebastian holds Blaine’s hand the whole ride back, even as they chat with Tina and Jeff in the seat in front of them and Nick and Sam across the aisle. Tina only coos at them a little bit.“I still like you,” Sebastian whispers into Blaine’s ear, in the middle of another one of Nick’s stories. “Just in case that wasn’t clear.”Blaine kisses him.Back at McKinley, they all stream off the bus, shouting across the parking lot to coordinate rides to Sugar’s afterparty. Blaine kisses Tina’s forehead and fistbumps Sam, promising to see them later. He meets Sebastian at his car and lets the other boy hold the passenger side door open for him.They drive out of Lima, avoiding Breadstix, where Blaine knows the underclassmen will have all gathered. They roll down the car windows and blast the radio, and Blaine kisses Sebastian’s cheek at a red light, just because he can.As they hit the highway, Blaine remembers to ask, “Are you happy?”Sebastian risks a glance at Blaine. His grin is wide, infectious, and less infuriating, now that Blaine knows he could kiss it off him. “Yes, B,” Sebastian says, “I am.”Blaine smiles too. He thinks about telling Sebastian he loves him, but the early spring sun begins to set around him. He’ll save it for another day, he thinks, looking at the dimple in Sebastian’s cheek. Besides, he’s pretty sure Sebastian already knows.