“Blaine?”

It’s too early to be at school, Blaine knows, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He glances sideways, half-smiles at Brittany. “Hi.”

Her face cracks into a smile, and she dawdles closer, sits on the cold step next to him.

“I missed you.”

Blaine gulps, meets her eyes. “I missed you too, Brit.”

She smiles softer, rests her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about Kurt.”

“It’s for the best, right?” Blaine asks.

Brittany shrugs, her shoulder half-bumping Blaine’s. “That all depends on what the best is, Blaine Warbler.”

A moment passes.

“Sebastian wasn’t dead.”

“Oh?”

Blaine nods. “Yeah, and he’s got powers too.”

Brittany curses under her breath. “I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“Is he really that much of a threat?” Blaine asks. “I mean, he does have a giant ice-monster at his disposal, but is he really going to do anything with it?”

“He tried to kill you before, Blaine.” Brittany says, eyes skitting back-forth across the early morning pavement. “Who’s to say he wouldn’t do it again?”

Blaine pauses. “Is there any way we could stop him without killing him?”

“We don’t even know if he has anything planned yet.”

“Yeah, but in the case that he does?”

“Oh,” Brittany says, “no.”

Blaine hesitates. “Is there anything that you could do with that mind thing? Couldn’t you make him forget?”

Brittany sighs. “Blaine, the one memory I showed you almost made me pass out, and you were willing; I’m not nearly powerful enough to get into his head, let alone forget.”

A moment passes, and Brittany sounds too-small when she speaks.

“If I did manage to erase his memory,” she gulps, “it would kill me.”

“Well, that’s off the cards,” Blaine says, fast, snappy. “You’re not dying, Brittany.”

She half-smiles, nodding. “Thanks for the reassurance.”

Brittany blinks, and Blaine is standing up, holding out his hand. “Let’s get to class early, yeah?”

Brittany lights up, takes his hand. “Friends?”

“Best friends.”

*

It’s just halfway through second period that Blaine hears the first screams, the solid, sure thump of something heavy collapsing. A small part of him wants to groan and just stay put like the teacher says, but, as a terrified student screeches while rushing into the sanctuary of his classroom, “There’s an ice monster in the hallway!”, and being a fire superhero, he can’t really ignore that.

Sliding into the corridor, he glances up and down it a few times, more screams from the right, runs to the right, skids around the corner and-

Oh.

Where the front doors to the school stood unproudly less than an hour ago, there is nothing but a giant gap in the brick and cement of the building. Blaine can feel his blood boiling, getting hotter with every passing second, and he can’t bother to try to calm himself as he fast-paces in front of the gap, eyes dancing over everywhere.

A moment passes.

“You,” Blaine yells, “are such a jerk, Sebastian!”

A growl echoes from behind him, and Blaine turns to see the aforementioned ice monster crouching far too close to him, standing far too tall.

“Pity,” says Sebastian, and Blaine doesn’t know whether he should be facing him or the ice monster. “Because I’m totally doing this to get you to like me.”

Blaine huffs a breath out through his nose. “Are you even trying to be subtle anymore?”

“No.”

-bloodisfirebloodisfirebloodisfire-

“Why are you doing this, then?” Blaine asks, and he swears he can feel himself glowing red-hot; he can feel the rage flowing through him, through his veins, to his head, to his hands.

“Because I can.”

Blaine snaps, hands exploding into red and heat and-

Oh my fucking god shit.

He’s holding a fireball.

Sebastian lets out a gasp, and Blaine throws the fireball forward, hitting the ice monster square in the face, and he’s up against the wall, ice-vice grip around his throat.

“You really think,” Sebastian asks, “that you can stop me?”

Blaine slams his hand against Sebastian’s wrist, heat and fire and Sebastian drops his hand, steps back as though he’s been stung, stabbed, burnt.

Blaine smiles, panting. “I know I can.”

Sebastian scowls, lurches for Blaine but he’s gone, on the other side of the room and hands red-hot again and then a fireball and Sebastian’s curving out of the way and the room suddenly goes much, much blurrier than Blaine thought it could, spinning away and Blaine’s standing in the gap where the doors used to be, warm daylight almost-cold on his back, hands frozen before him, boiling, Sebastian shooting icicles towards him and they’re melting oh my god I am literally melting ice in seconds oh my god.

Sebastian pauses, and then he’s gone, and Blaine runs back into the school, down the hall and sends every bit of heat he can feel towards his hands, and it’s out and bigger than Blaine expected but hey, he’s not complaining.

There’s a growl from down the hallway, and Blaine drops the fireball, lets it explode around him, stares forward.

There’s two ice monsters, both half the size of the first one, and Blaine’s heart stops.

No, it literally stops for a second, because Sebastian’s behind him and his hand is on his back in a chillingly familiar manner and then Blaine’s skin is stinging, solid and cold and he’s freezing you, fuck, fuck-

The cold-pressure stops a second later, and he whirls around to see Sebastian stumbling not a foot away from him, Kurt standing in between them both.

His heart bursts back into heat a second later, and he slumps against the locker, and that’s when he notices the crowd. What must be almost the entire school is at the end of the hall, peering cautiously around the corner like meerkats, and a small part of Blaine sighs internally as Kurt whirls around.

So much for the secret identity, then.

*

It’s second period when Kurt first hears the screams, the teacher looking half-worried as she ushers them underneath their desks, shuts the blinds, curls up underneath her own.

The thud comes a solid five minutes later, and nobody manages to stay inside after that. Tina is first to the door, soft-clicking it open and peering out into the hallway and letting out a gasp, twirling back around and shutting the door behind her.

“Ice monster.”

“What?” Kurt hisses, crawl-stand-tiptoeing towards her.

“There’s an ice monster in the hallway,” she says, teeth, fingers clenched.

“Tina, what-”

“-you are such a jerk, Sebastian!”

Kurt freezes, stumble-runs towards the door, whirls his head around the corner. A few students are standing in the half-alcoves placed around the hallway, and Kurt runs behind one of them, skids to a halt.

“Ice monster?” he questions, breathless, heart ramming like a wild bull against his ribcage.

“Ice monster,” she confirms, not turning around, “and the fight of the century.”

Kurt can see it now, at the end of the hall, breathing, moving, growling like a tiger, shining in the cheap lighting.

“Fight of the century?”

She goes to answer, but the moment she opens her mouth, a large ball of fire smacks into the ice monster, balling it over.

A too-quiet moment passes.

“Shit,” is all Kurt can gasp out, eyes blinking, widening.

“I know,” she replies, and then there’s another smash at the end of the hallway, like they needed a reason to re-focus. Two flashes of red and white-blue are speeding around at the top of the corridor, gradually smashing their way down towards Kurt, and then the blue one disappears, and the red one is condensing into a human shape and black shirt and red pants and Kurt swears he knows him but the blue flash reappears behind him, and Kurt’s heart drops in a too-familiar plunge.

It’s Sebastian, holding his hand to the boy’s back like a butcher knife and he’s tensing up, not fighting back and Kurt’s moving forward more quickly than he thinks is physically possible and shoving his entire body weight against Sebastian and he’s stumbling and the boy is stumbling and Kurt’s glaring, angry-terrified at Sebastian and spinning to oh my god.

Slouching full-bodied against a locker, glowing red-hot, is Blaine Anderson.

*

The hallway is in disarray, lockers half-melted, half-frozen, paper and crumbled brick everywhere, and Blaine looks up to stare at Kurt, can’t bring himself to look away.

Kurt opens his mouth, looking somewhere between confused and terrified, and falls forward. Sebastian stands behind him, shaking off his first and smiling devil-smug to himself, stepping towards Blaine, and then he’s up against the wall, choking from an invisible grip.

Blaine wheezes, pushes himself up but then a chill like a frozen lake at midnight pushes through his back, through his heart, ribcage, through his skin and out and he looks down and fuck fuck fUCK AH JESUS CHRIST GOD NO FUCK FUck-

There’s an icicle protruding from his chest like a gravestone, red that’s less fire and more blood glowing around it, seeping out, he can feel it everywhere, he can’t breathe-

The icicle removes itself from his chest, and Blaine falls like a human ragdoll to the floor, head landing next to Kurt’s, barely managing to let out a wheeze as Kurt’s head is moved, taken from his peripheral vision and up, up and his eyes follow up, up into blackness, and a strange buzzing, and it’s not that cold, it doesn’t hurt that much, not really-

“Blaine!”

-and ohgod, it hURTS it really hurts, like his veins are being stitched back in by hand-

“Blaine, can you hear me!? BLAINE!?”

-his heart is toohot, blood toohot, everything’s burning up like a firework-

Blaine opens his eyes.

There’s a figure above him, but it’s all shapes and buzzing, and Blaine wheezes in a breath sweetlordshit and it’s like he’s been underwater for a decade, can barely remember how to breathe but he does it anyway-

“Blaine?”

The figure is clearer now, focusing into hair and nose and eyes and-

A too-quiet moment of awkward passes, and Blaine speaks.

“Cooper?”