the feeling’s mutual.

                                             ❝What…??” He rose an eyebrow at the boy’s pause, though he could tell what he was thinking, and he showed it next. “I’d stop thinking you’re a good diversion?” He bit on his tongue. He wondered if in midst of it all, Blaine had ever really stopped to THINK about the WAYS in which Sebastian would always insult him. Was it really that bad when they were all about the hyper, sunshine, persona Blaine put forward, and when Sebastian actually enjoyed his truer, more ambitious, and less nicey-nice self? Maybe he just wanted to see what would happen if the boy stopped pretending, if he stopped LETTING people trample all over him, and took what he wanted with the weapons he already had, and the will he knew was in there somewhere, underneath the glasses and all the hair gel. 

“Because your stupide American school thinks I’m an imbecile for not knowing all the details to American history? Because it’s too hard for them to comprehend that I might be able to answer complex physics and socioeconomic’s questions a whole damn better if they allowed me to study in French?” He shrugs. “Because they think I need nerd training, when all I really needed was extra time and a few additional French text books.” He notices Blaine’s fists mid-through his rambling and stops. “Are you going to hit me, Jiminy? Kindly avoid the nose, I’d rather not get a third surgery on it.” He wasn’t stupid, no matter what the dean thought, and he knew Blaine practiced boxing, and he’d never taken self defense classes in his life. He wasn’t afraid either, he’d been beaten too many times to care anymore, but he waited, to see what the other would do. And then… nothing. 

He seemed to crumble, looking down, and then he was agreeing with Sebastian’s proposition, or order, for lack of a better word. He shot him a surprised glance, specially at the words that came next. “Join the club, charming.” He pointed out, saying Blaine wasn’t the only one that wanted out of this bizarre situation sooner, rather than later. Sebastian wasn’t used to needing ANY kind of tutoring and this was really exasperating to say the least. 

As they started walking, he focused his attention ahead, one hand easily caught on the strap of his backpack, and the other swaying besides him with his step, finger contracting and relaxing like a rhythm, the colorful lights dancing on and out of his face. When Blaine finally spoke again he didn’t look, but his step got tenser for a moment, before he forced out a chuckle and spoke again. “I think that’s what you’d like to think you are. I think you waste whole lot of freaking time trying to get there.” He glances at him, the frown, the unsettled expression, the shifting, but also the grit and want to prove Sebastian wrong that attract him so much more than the good two shoes routine. “Still get nightmares about your I, Robot, performance, last parents-teachers conference night.” He paused to take a good look at him. “I rather like you like this.” He smirked, leading him upstairs as they reached the dorms. “We’re doing it at my place.” He didn’t want anyone seeing him getting tutored and getting ideas from it.

Diversion?  The confusion that made Blaine’s head spin before he opened his mouth only doubled in the ways it played out on his face.  Brows creased together tight and he opened his lips to say something a good couple of times before words actually happened.  When they did?  A faint hint of crimson spread over the bridge of his nose and warmed his cheeks.  “No.  Not a..  Why would you say I was a diversion?  A diversion to what exactly?  You being bored?  Focusing on yourself instead of on me and all the faults I have that you love to point out?”  Did Sebastian make himself feel better with every little dig about his personality, thoughts, feelings that he took?  He must.  Because they weren’t stopping.  Blaine might pride himself on his ability to keep a mostly level head in any given circumstance when it came to people like Sebastian Smythe but even he had his limits.  Sebastian seemed quite intent on pushing him over them.  Happy to do so even.

This entire conversation was borderlining on ridiculous at this point.  Maybe they should cut their losses.  Come up with a plan that they could both say they did what the Dean made him promise and be done with each other.  Sebastian wouldn’t get kicked off the lacrosse team, which Blaine isn’t sure Sebastian knows will happen if his grades don’t improve.  And he could focus on The Warblers so they could win Sectionals.  Win/Win.  If you asked him.  He had no idea how tight his hands were getting.  Or how the color that’d bled from his knuckles had now left them beyond pale as the crescent shapes of his nails started to dig into the flesh of his palm.  He was, also, clueless that his eyes were darker and his back teeth were grinding together.  Until Sebastian pointed it out by asking him…  “Hit you,” a strained whisper before his upper lip curled in disbelief.  Dark lashes fluttered as he rapidly blinked and the shadows in his stare lifted. “No.  I’d never..  I’m not like that.”  It was just.. Sebastian always managed to find buttons Blaine didn’t even know he had.  Then proceed to push (no slam) every. single. one.

Eye contact broken, a visibly increasingly shaken Blaine kept at Sebastian’s side not once looking up from the marble passing by underneath his feet.  Barely listening to the answer to his question as his head swam with the idea that his arm ached from holding himself back the way he must have.  How he knew as soon as he left Sebastian’s company, he’d be in the gym until he couldn’t lift his arms anymore.  Let alone swing.  How’d he let Sebastian take him to that place?  Drag him down that far?  He shook his head and lifted one hand to hold the strap of his satchel right at the shoulder.  “I think you waste a lot of your time thinking you know me well enough to even guess you know what I’d like to think of myself as.  You don’t know anything about me that matters enough to have even a clue.  Stop thinking you do.”  

“Like that.  Stop thinking you have a clue as to why I might have been on the only autopilot I know that night that’ll make things..,” he cut himself off and abruptly changed the subject.  Blaine figured they were going to his room.  Why would Sebastian suggest otherwise?  Wouldn’t it be too big of a risk that someone might drop by and might see him there?  You know?  “Your room?  Why your room?  Aren’t you worried someone might see me following you there?  I wouldn’t want you to risk that.”  You could practically taste the sarcasm dripping from his lips.  Finally looking up at him, the Warbler rolled his eyes and dismissed having the energy to argue with an upward twitch of the fingers near his shoulder.  “Whatever.  Let’s go,” he rolled his eyes and waited for Sebastian to take the lead.