Blaine woke up in his Dalton Academy dorm room two days before Sectionals with a dull ache in all his muscles. He also had the fiercest erection he'd ever experienced.

He kept these two facts carefully separate in his head.

He was coming down with something. The flu, maybe, or a twenty-four hour virus. Maybe it was food poisoning. He was never quite sure how long food had been left sitting out in Dalton's dining hall. Could food poisoning make your muscles ache? Well, in any case, the flu definitely could.

As for the erection, that was just ordinary teenage hormones. He'd woken up hard before, hundreds of times. He was a sixteen year old boy. These things happened. It was not connected to the muscle aches at all. It couldn't be. He wasn't ready for it to be.

He wasn't ready for his first Sickness.

Blaine thought about jerking off, but the idea of it was too much right now. Too close to thinking about actually having sex with another person, something that sounded great in theory but seemed terrifying when he thought about doing it for real. Instead, he forced himself out of bed and into a shower stall in the shared hall bathroom. He stripped down behind the locked stall door and stepped under the shower head. He let the cold water flow over him until his erection fled, then turned the water as hot as he could bear to try to ease the ache in his muscles.

He leaned his head back against the wall of the shower, eyes closed, breathing deeply to calm himself. He'd been over the options in his head a million times, worrying, knowing this would happen sooner or later. Nobody was absolutely certain they were a sub until their first Sickness came, but it was usually pretty obvious before then. Blaine had always felt the urge to please, to seek approval. For the past year, he had felt little tugs to obey whenever a dom gave an order, however mild. Blaine was as sure as anyone can ever be, that he was a sub.

And yet he hadn't found a way to be prepared for it. He banged his head against the shower wall lightly, punishing himself for his stupidity. But what way out was there? He didn't know any gay guys except Sebastian, and there was no way he was letting that creep dom him. The way Sebastian was always bragging about his conquests made Blaine shudder. The boy could not be trusted, and the chance of him having an STD were too high anyway, if half of what he bragged about was true. Blaine wanted to stay as far away from him as possible. Even if Sebastian's calm orders, with his sideways glances to see whether Blaine would obey, made his heart race more than anything else ever had. It was just because Sebastian was gay and a dom, Blaine knew. It wasn't anything particular about him. He hated the guy. Absolutely loathed him. No, Sebastian was not an option.

The only other option was to come out.

Blaine had come out at his old school. He'd gone to a dance with another boy, both of them innocent little fourteen-year-olds, and they'd been beaten senseless for it. So he'd left that school and come to Dalton, and had not yet had the courage to come out again. Not to anyone. Not a single person at the school knew. Sebastian suspected. He was always trying to draw it out of him. But Blaine had refused to confirm anything, and Sebastian at least had the decency not to talk about it in front of the other boys.

Blaine didn't know any other gay guys, let alone gay doms, so the options were to ask Sebastian to dom him, or ask a straight person for help. Would any of them even know where to find a gay dom for him? Which of the other boys was likely to have a gay dom friend, or maybe an older brother or a cousin or something? Was one of his friends a closeted gay dom himself? He didn't know.

He could go to the school nurse. That was probably what he should do. The responsible thing to do. She would know how to help, know who to call. She'd have connections at another school or a clinic, or know about another gay Dalton student who would discretely dom him, or something. But he barely knew the woman, and the thought of discussing something this personal with a straight woman he'd only ever interacted with to pick up packets of Tylenol and have his temperature checked that one time ... it seemed impossible.

No. This was not his Sickness. He was feeling better already, from the soothing warm water of the shower. It was just a bit of a cold. He'd be fine. He had plenty of time to think of a better plan. Blaine shut the water off, grabbed his towel and headed back to his dorm room.

He did his best to ignore how quickly the achy feeling seeped back in as he put on his uniform. In two days, he would lead the Warblers to a glorious victory at Sectionals, and after that, he would concentrate on finding a way out of this dilemma.

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Kurt walked into the choir room with the rest of New Directions and took a seat next to Rachel. Tensions had been somewhat high between them since he'd won the diva-off last week and been rewarded with the solo spot in their set list for Sectionals, but they were both trying to behave normally. Their friendship had constant ups and downs, and they'd surely survive this one the way they'd survived the others. Kurt shot a friendly smile at Rachel, and she smiled back.

Mr. Schuester stood in front of the room and rubbed his hands together. "I know this is last minute, and Sectionals is only two days away, but I've decided that the solo should go to Rachel, not Kurt. It's a girl song, and even though Kurt sounds amazing on it, I don't want the judges to be biased against us for having a boy singing a girl song."

Kurt felt his blood stirring in an uncontrollable rage that seemed to come out of nowhere. He'd felt nothing like it before. He'd heard the same sentiment dozens of times, but he'd never reacted like this. He leapt to his feet before he even realized what was happening. "That's insane!" he shouted. "I won that competition fair and square, and I should get to sing the solo! Fuck the goddamn judges, it's mine!"

Everyone froze. Kurt felt the heat slowly ebb from his body. He looked around the room and found that he was the only student standing, surrounded by all his friends watching him with startled looks on their faces. His words echoed in his ears. He never swore.

His cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice raspy. "I don't know what got into me." He lowered himself slowly onto the chair.

"Hormones," Puck stage-whispered. Lauren snorted and slapped at Puck playfully.

Kurt looked down at his hands. He wanted the floor to open and swallow him up. Rachel reached over and patted him on the leg reassuringly, but he wished she wouldn't. He didn't even want to be here right now, let alone touch anyone.

Mr. Schue cleared his throat. "Sorry Kurt, I understand you being upset about this. Next time we'll find a song that's more suited to you, I promise. Okay everyone, let's go over the dance for the group number again, it's more complicated than anything we've tried before and I want to make sure it's perfect."

Kurt took a deep breath, stood up, and took his place in the back row for the dance number. He was perfectly capable of controlling himself, hormones or not. Even when he was being treated unfairly. All he had to do was get through a couple more years, graduate from high school, and move on to New York where he would shine brighter than the brightest star and nobody would get in his way. He was in control of his destiny. He could do this.

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Nobody noticed anything off about Blaine that day, but by the time he came back to his dorm room after dinner, he was exhausted from the effort of keeping himself upright and pulled together throughout the day. Warblers rehearsal had been torture, with Sebastian and Wes disagreeing over choreography and shouting out conflicting orders that pulled Blaine's head in two directions at once. Still, he'd managed to maintain a calm exterior and avoided embarrassing himself in front of all of the guys.

He wondered idly if Wes might be bi-curious enough to help him out, but he pushed that idea away quickly. They were good friends, and Blaine didn't want to ruin that. The idea wouldn't have even occurred to him if he weren't so completely exhausted from the day's efforts. The clock on his bedside table only said 8:15, but Blaine let himself fall asleep anyway.

He woke up in a cold sweat the next morning, with another crazy erection.

Blaine groaned and rolled himself out of bed. He only had to make it through this day and the next one, through the Sectionals performance. He was invulnerable on stage, he could do anything up there, the adrenaline rush was so huge. He wasn't worried about that. He was worried about sitting in class all day, about arguing with the Warblers, about the bus ride to the competition venue. He wasn't worried about singing and dancing on stage. That part was easy.

He spent a very long time in the shower, trying to feel better and gather the courage for his day. At breakfast, he drank twice his usual amount of coffee.

Trent was the only one who noticed anything that day, asking him after Warblers rehearsal if everything was okay. Blaine had been uncommonly quiet, and had stepped through the dance moves with less than his usual vigor.

Blaine said he was just tired.

He considered going to the nurse's office. If he had the flu, that was the place to go, wasn't it? Maybe she could give him some medicine, just to keep him going.

He didn't go, because he was afraid of what she would say. Of what he would have to tell her.

Blaine skipped dinner that night and slept fourteen hours. He woke up barely able to move, and with an erection that was impossible to ignore.

He slid his hand into his pajama pants and palmed himself through his underwear. He thanked the heavens, not for the first time, that Dalton's dorms were all single-person rooms. He needed this release. He needed more, if he was going to be honest about it. He needed to be dominated. Another man to take control, tell him what to do, stimulate the chemicals his body couldn't make on its own and bring him back to health. But maybe this, by himself, would be enough to let him last the day. He pushed his pants and underwear down and took himself in hand.

As a rule, Blaine tried not to think about anyone he knew personally when he jerked off. He ran through his usual list of hot celebrities in his mind, but he couldn't keep his thoughts focused on any one of them. Eventually he found himself thinking of Sebastian. Not a sexual fantasy about Sebastian, not an image of his body. Blaine thought of Sebastian giving orders, ordinary ones, in the way that he did on a daily basis. "Switch places with Trent, the choreography will work better that way. Could you grab my jacket from the chair, I forgot it. Sing it a little bit slower, see how it works." Blaine wanted to obey, any order, no matter what it was. He'd do anything. He wanted to just surrender to it. He groaned, his hips rising off the bed in his excitement and need.

Would it be so horrible to go to Sebastian? He was ... hot. Masculine. Dominant. He had the power to heal Blaine, and he would enjoy doing it, and Blaine would enjoy it too, wouldn't he? While it was going on, at least. But afterward ... Sebastian would be back to his smarmy self, if he'd even dropped it at all during sex. Blaine would be ashamed of himself, probably humiliated. Sebastian would never keep it a secret, he loved to brag too much. Bragging about someone all the other Warblers knew would be far too much of a temptation for him to resist. And then Blaine would be outed to the entire group, they'd all know he was gay, and that he had submitted himself to Sebastian of all people, and god knows what they'd think of him then. They seemed like his friends, but would they turn on him? Would he get hurt? Would he have to change schools yet again?

It was the same risk as just asking the Warblers if any of them knew anyone and coming out that way, except with the added humiliation of submitting to Sebastian. No. This was not a way out. It was nothing more than a fantasy. Just a fantasy. Just enough to get him through the day, please, please let it be enough.

Please, please, Blaine imagined himself begging Sebastian.

The imaginary Sebastian stared at him coldly, owning. Touch yourself. I want to watch.

Blaine came into his own hand, gasping in relief.

He felt better as he came down from his orgasm. His limbs were fully under his control again. He stood up and walked to the bathroom with no problem. He could do this. Sectionals today, performing at two in the afternoon. He could make it that far. And whatever ended up happening after, whether it was Sebastian or an embarrassing trip to the nurse's office, at least he'd have the performance done with. At least he wouldn't be singing his solo in front of a group of boys who were laughing about him behind his back. That was all he could ask for.