Jacob Ben Israel takes a deep breath, centres himself, and flings himself at the first person he sees.

“Did you hear that Sebastian’s back?”

“What?! Is he okay?”

No, you won’t work.

He directs his cameraman a little to the left, squints. Grins.

Perfect.

“Kurt Hummel, head cheerio and ex-boyfriend of the now released from custody-”

“-wait, what?” Kurt stops.

Jacob grins wider.

Perfect.

“You haven’t heard? Sebastian’s been released.”

Kurt splutters for a moment, eyes blinking shock-wide.

“H-he can’t be…he – he tried to…”

“He’s back, Hummel.” Jacob says, adding a bit of hiss-whisper for dramatic effect. “And don’t take my word for it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had something bad storming for Anderson.”

Jacob almost-struts away, not bothering to look back at Kurt’s face.

*

Fuck. Shit fuck fuck fu-

“Calm your shit, Hummel.” He mutters under hasty breaths, trying to organize his frantic thoughts into one clear, clean-cut stream of idea.

Oh god he’s back, Sebastian’s back and if you thought he was out for blood before-

Breathes. Leans at his locker.

Blaine was in intensive care – it takes months, if not years, to recover from that kind of injury.

You have time. You can damage control. So calm down.

Kurt smiles, internally, and turns to walk to his first class.

Blaine won’t even be able to walk for a long-

“Kurt?”

Kurt spins on his heel.

No, no, no nope not happening what no-

“Blaine?” He sounds a lot more desperate than he’d like to.

It’s Blaine, it’s definitely Blaine – but there’s something different about him.

Something more.

He looks slightly taller, more muscled; if one compared this Blaine to the Blaine that Kurt had known last week, one could say they were distantly related. Blaine’s skin looks fresher, his stance is more confident, and-

Oh.

Dear god.

-and Blaine had been stabbed in the back – quite literally – a few days ago.

He’d bled out on Kurt’s hands and neck. He’d been put in intensive care.

Kurt had been told he probably wouldn’t ever walk again.

Why is he here?

“Ha! It’s me!”

*

God what do you think he’s thinking you were stabbed normal people don’t just get stabbed and walk free hell half of them don’t walk at all what the fuck were you going to do, just walk up to him and declare yourself immortal? A superhero? Really? You’re supposed to be dead.

“Ha! It’s me!” Blaine forces a smile.

Great, just fucking great.

“B-Blaine, what are you doing here?”

Shit.

“Doctor said I could come back, and I didn’t want to miss out on my studies too much, so…” Blaine smiles again. This time, Kurt smiles back, but he looks nervous.

“What’s wrong?”

Kurt grimaces, looks around the hall to make sure no-one’s within hearing distance.

“Sebastian’s out of custody.”

Blaine’s heart drops.

He slumps back against his locker, face falling.

“He’s gonna try and get me again, isn’t he?”

Blaine doesn’t want to know but at the same time, he kind of does.

“It’s rumoured.”

Shit.

Blaine breathes out slow, turns towards the school entrance. He can see Sebastian through the windows, grinning stupidly at his friends and making his way into McKinley High.

“Well, there’s only one thing for it.”

Kurt perks up, surprised. “What?”

Blaine grimaces.

“I’ll have to get to him first.”

*

Kurt’s mind just stops.

Blaine’s off, walking slowly but still far too fast towards the glass doors that are the only thing separating him and his attempted murderer and what the fuck Kurt, this is suicide, go after him.

And Kurt’s off too.

*

“Who do you think you are?”

The sentence comes out as more of a growl and before he can register it, Blaine is standing behind Sebastian. Sebastian glances over his shoulder, a slow smile expanding through his face.

Blaine’s pretty sure he’s never been angrier.

Sebastian turns to face him, nodding at his friends to step behind him. Cracks his knuckles.

“Anderson, what a pity – I thought I’d never get to see you again.” Friends laughing behind him, Sebastian steps closer.

Blaine scoffs.

“I’m sure you’d like that, Sebastian.” He says. “Especially with the whole trying-to-kill-me thing.”

One of Sebastian’s friends decides to chime in.

“Oh please, nerd, you’re far too annoying to just die.”

Sebastian, however, has frozen to the spot.

“What did you say?” Steps forward.

“I said you tried to kill me.” Holds his ground.

Sebastian laughs, noticeably nervous. Glances at his friends.

“You’re gonna wish you were dead when I’m through with you.”

Sebastian launches forward, fist raised and Blaine is more than ready to kick his ass back to it’s infant years when-

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

*

-stop him stop them both fuck oh god-

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Kurt doesn’t know how the words came out of his mouth, how he’s suddenly gone from hiding behind the crowd to standing face-face with Sebastian. He doesn’t know what’s suddenly fuelling his intention to grab Sebastian’s clenched fist and almost-scream in his face.

Sebastian, however, seems to have an idea.

“Oh, what’s wrong with me? Maybe it’s the fact that I got arrested for trying to get my boyfriend back.”

Kurt can see him playing it up, girls in the crowd awww-ing and all, and he’s far too close to just wrenching his head off his shoulders but this is his domain.

“Please, Sebastian, don’t act like you ever had a chance.”

“What? Is that complete waste of a person-”

“-I wouldn’t go there if I were you.”

Sebastian smiles, chuckles a little.

“Is he really better than me? Does he fuck your tight little ass better than me?”

Kurt feels Blaine tensing behind him, and he doesn’t have to look to know that one more stupid line like that could have him lashing out.

“You know, Sebastian, I’m pretty sure half the girls in this school could fuck me better than you ever did.”

Blaine snorts, and Kurt feels a small surge of something warm in his chest.

“I’m pretty sure your little boyfriend is a lying cunt.”

Sebastian’s lashing, tossing out whatever line he thinks will stab deepest, and Kurt needs to stop him. Moving past the crowd, past Sebastian, he tries to leave.

“He’s not my boyfriend. Sebastian, I really don’t have time for this-“

“-don’t walk away from me, baby, don’t you dare-“

Sebastian obviously didn’t mean to slip it out, and he sounds a little more desperate than he intends to and Kurt wants to cry, but he doesn’t quite know what for.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore! You don’t get to talk about me, or call me baby, or hurt me-“

“-and it’s all his fault!”

Time seems to freeze between them, and the crowd begins to mutter again before Kurt’s painfully sharp, clear-cut voice interrupts them for the last time.

“If you were a decent person, you wouldn’t be blaming it on anyone but yourself.”

He almost-runs into the nearest classroom, shuts the door and brings his knees up to his chest as he finally lets the tears fall.