Disclaimer: I don't own Glee.

A/N: My lovely readers, this collection belongs with a writing project I have recently joined. It will be all one-shots, with very much varying topics and characters involved, of ideally around 500 words. Knowing myself, there will be quite some amount of Klaine, which probably so will turn out to be an understatement.

So, yeah, one-shots, that's why it is listed as a complete story, but there will be weekly updates. And no pesky cliffhangers:)

The system works like this:

All writers involved receive the same prompt, which can be anything really, on a Thursday, from someone within the group, and we all complete and post our fills until the following Wednesday latest.

A BIG THANK YOU to ...

Different Child

Ficdirectory

pi-on-a-skateboard

Tara621

and PenMagic

... for allowing me to come along on this ride. I am really excited to be writing with and for you, and to read how your imagination responds to prompts. It is the most exciting part to me about this project, being allowed to see imagination work away with the same words into half a dozen different directions.

My gorgeous readers, how about checking out what Different Child, Ficdirectory, pi-on-a-skateboard, Tara621 and PenMagic have done with the weekly prompt! In the collections already longer running this weekly prompt is Chapter 28.

This week the prompt was so perfect I just had to use it as the title for this one-shot.

Prompt (28): Be Prepared

Character: Sebastian Smythe (Season 3, 'Michael')

Words: 742

Be Prepared

Sebastian Smythe, renaissance man, all around talent, man of the world. That is how many people see him. It is, in a big part, how he likes to be seen.

There is a problem with it though. The problem is …, the problem is huge to him, a tiny one, non-existent to most others.

People like to talk, less to think. But those who do, those people …

... people think …

'Sebastian Smythe, what an eloquent boy.'

Sebastian Smythe, good student.'

Sebastian Smythe, nice voice.'

'Sebastian Smythe, what a douchbag.'

People think many things about Sebastian Smythe but before today, before today no one had ever asked him how he thinks about himself. His parents having forbidden him years ago, the moment he came out, to ever talk about himself, to even think about himself again, in that way.

So Sebastian, Sebastian is not prepared, not prepared in the least for the talk he is about to have with the man standing in his dorm room at Dalton right now.

Heck, he does not even know the guy. Sure he has heard of him, who has not? But he has never seen him in person.

Imposing? Threatening? No, it is not any way Sebastian Smythe would ever describe the man standing only a few feet away from him. And yet, there is something about this man, something Smythe can only determine after chancing a long hard look – and then it dawns on him. Unlike Sebastian himself, this man, 'He is prepared – for whatever he came here to say, do.' And then Sebastian is swallowing hard, taking a half step back and for the first time fully meeting the man's eyes.

"Kid, stop fidgeting. I ain't here to take your head off, even though you tried to …, what was it you were exactly going for with that slushy?"

"Ain't your business," Sebastian says with a snarky, fake grin, trying to take some steam out of the man's drive.

"Kurt said you'd be like that."

"Like what?" Sebastian asks, eyes narrowed, Sebastian clearly in defence mode.

"Tryin' to gain some upper hand whichever way you think you can," the man answers with not an unkind smile and a shake of his head.

Sebastian gets ready to throw some cheap, snarky comment the man's way when …

… the other just raises his hand. "Cut the crap, kid. Normally I would be talkin' to your parents, not you. I made'n exception for you."

Sebastian is just staring now, confused.

"Why did you do it?" the man asks, look on his face for the first time truly sinister to Sebastian, for reasons he himself does not understand. It might be the unexpected kindness still present somewhere in the man's eyes and voice.

'Isn't he supposed to fucking hate me?' He thinks, and so his answer is a reflex more than anything. "I wanted Blaine."

"Bullshit, kid."

"Oh, so you know what I want, but I don't?" Sebastian is starting to sound as defensive as he ever gets.

"I know you are about as interested in Blaine as Kurt is in slow-dancing with Santana."

"You don't know me," Sebastian says angrily.

"So you are not the guy who tried to throw a slushy in my boy's face and hit his boyfriend instead? You are not the guy that has had my kid in angry and frustrated and desperate tears the night of the West Side Thingy opening, for about an hour, before I told him to just go talk it out with his boyfriend?"

"SO WHAT?"

"I'm here to ask you to stop messing with my family."

"Mr. Hummel, frankly, I don't care."

"About Blaine or Kurt, I know."

"NO! About what YOU want!"

Burt Hummel lets out a sigh, running a hand over his bald head, "You know, you don't need to be this angry all the time."

"I AM NOT!" Sebastian outright shouts.

"Sure, kid. Sure." Burt says, making to leave.

"And stop calling me that."

"Kid?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, whether you like that, or not, it's what you are. A lost kid," and then Burt is out of the door, it closing behind him as Sebastian stands, mouth gaping still staring at the spot Burt just stood for the last seven minutes.

The sadness in Burt's last words is still ringing in Sebastian's ears as he reaches up and twists his hands in his hair in frustration, letting out a growling whine.