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quinnsallow · 7 hours ago

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Ahhhh

Almost, Always | Sebastian Sallow x Reader

Chapter Three

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A story of almosts, maybes, and finallys. You and Sebastian Sallow have loved each other for years, just never at the right time.

Words: ~3,300

Series Tags: Modern AU, Post-Hogwarts, Auror!Sebastian Sallow, Cursebreaker!MC, Modern Magical AU, Female Reader Insert, Mid-Size / Plus-Size Female Protagonist, Friends to Lovers, Long-Term Mutual Pining, Slow Burn Romance, Missed Timing, Second Chances, Grief and Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Body Image Issues, Fluff, Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending

Content Warnings: Sexual Assault, Trauma, Abortion (Non-Descriptive), Strong Emotional Themes

Chapter Track: Falling Away With You, Muse

Special thanks to @sunnyrealist for beta-ing the plot of this story and @dreamy-gal-30 for beta-ing the chapter drafts! I could not do this without you!

You, Age 20

The air in the tomb was dry, thick with the scent of dust and sand. You moved carefully, wandlight bobbing in rhythm with your slow steps. The humidity of the upper ruins had given way to a creeping cold down here.

Your hand hovered steady over the crumbling reliefs etched into the stone walls. The carvings were Minoan-inspired, but the language beneath them had Akkadian roots, a hybridization you were still working to decode. Whoever built this place had borrowed heavily from multiple magical traditions.

You crouched beside a mosaic set into the floor, blue and gold tile caked in sand, and reached for the leather-bound notebook tucked into your satchel. You jotted a note in the margin.

Section Four. Tile pattern repeats, likely a curse trigger. Possible pressure plate?

“Curse architecture built to last forever,” your supervisor had told you during orientation. “Layered wards. Traps that reset. Think like a sadist and you’ll live longer.”

Her voice echoed in your mind as you stepped around the mosaic with practiced precision, heart hammering against your ribs. It wasn’t quite fear anymore, but the pulse of adrenaline. After two years of fieldwork, you’d learned how to live with it. The constant knowledge that one wrong move could be the last.

You moved deeper into the tomb, passing beneath a narrow archway etched with faded script and the half-preserved image of a woman holding a wand in one hand and scales in the other. A judge, perhaps.

The tunnel beyond was more intact than you’d anticipated. A ribcage of stone columns held up the vaulted ceiling, dust drifting in lazy sheets through the shaft of your wandlight. You passed through, slowly, eyes scanning every groove, every gap between the bricks.

Then, just ahead, your light caught on something.

A glint. Thin. Metallic.

You stopped cold.

A tripwire.

You lowered yourself to the floor, boots scraping lightly against the worn stone, and leaned in to inspect it. The wire was anchored with old solder, but someone had reinforced it recently with magically bonded copper. Local work. Likely black market.

You swore under your breath.

This wasn’t just a historical site anymore. Someone else had been here. Possibly still was.

You muttered a revelio and watched as lines of warding magic bloomed across the thread, illuminating the web of spells it triggered: paralysis hex, concussive burst, maybe worse. A layer cake of consequences.

You straightened slowly, pulse hammering behind your ribs. One step back. Then another.

Your boot hit something that clicked.

Too late.

The floor beneath you shifted with a deep, mechanical groan as stone slabs slid into new positions.

You turned, but the passage you’d come through was already sealing itself shut, dust spilling down like rain as the wall slammed into place with a deafening thud.

Shit.

You pivoted and sprinted forward, wand raised, just as the ceiling behind you began to crack apart. A barrage of darts shot from the walls, fast and precise. You threw yourself into a side alcove, cast Protego on instinct, and felt the force of them ping off your shield like hail on glass.

You couldn’t go back. Couldn't stay put.

And the tomb knew it.

Stone groaned again—grinding gears embedded deep in the walls, waking for the first time in who knew how long. Dust and mortar showered you from the ceiling. Somewhere ahead, you heard another snap of metal. A door unlocking if you were lucky. A trap springing if you were realistic.

"Lumos maxima!"

Your light flared, catching a small stairwell at the far end of the chamber, half-buried under collapsed debris. A way out. Maybe.

You ran.

Your legs burned, boots slipping on gravel and bone-dry sand. The stairs curved in a tight spiral, barely wide enough for one person, and halfway up you caught the glitter of another tripwire.

You jumped over it mid-stride, heart in your throat, and didn’t slow down until you burst through a narrow stone doorway that led outside, lightheaded and sweating.

A wall of dust and dry heat chased you out, screaming through the gap like a living thing.

You stumbled forward and hit the ground hard, knees first, then palms—sand digging into your skin, biting into the cuts already torn open on your hands. The wind caught in your ears. A deafening whoosh of air and grit and crumbling stone.

Then nothing. Just the sound of your own breath, ragged and loud in the stillness.

You made it.

The tomb’s exit, half-swallowed by the desert, sunburnt and ancient, gaped behind you like the mouth of something that hadn’t eaten in centuries and was very nearly satisfied.

You collapsed onto your back with a long, shaking exhale, blinking up at the sky. Bright, cloudless blue stretched above you, so sharp it made your eyes water. You tasted sand in your teeth and blood on your lip. You’d skinned your elbow, bruised your ribs, and lost a whole page of notes somewhere down in the stairwell.

But you were alive.

“Fuck me,” you muttered to no one. “That was close.”

A shadow passed overhead, a vulture, maybe. Or just a cloud you’d imagined. You didn’t move right away. Just lay there in the heat and let your heartbeat slow down and the adrenaline fade, leaving behind the telltale throb in your joints and the ache in your legs.

You should have been shaken. Maybe you were. But this? This part? You loved it.

The adrenaline, the puzzles, the split-second decisions. The heart-pounding rush of surviving something that absolutely should have killed you. It was the same thrill that made you want to be an Auror. The same rush you’d chased back at school, shoulder to shoulder with Sebastian, racing headlong into chaos with only instinct, trust, and a half-baked plan between you and disaster.

He lived for moments like that. And you did too.

But then there was the paperwork. The endless artifact cataloguing. The diplomatic briefings with tight-lipped supervisors who’d never set foot inside a collapsing tomb. The long nights cross-referencing dead languages in bad lighting.

And that was the part about cursebreaking that you hated. The part that made you wonder, sometimes, why you hadn’t just become an Auror after all. Why you hadn’t gone with Sebastian. Why you’d said yes to a job that so often felt like a waiting room between moments of clarity.

But at least out here, you weren’t torturing yourself trying to pretend you didn’t still love him.

You sat there for a minute longer, hand reaching instinctively for your satchel. Your fingers brushed the cracked leather of your notebook, but you passed over it. Instead, you pulled out your phone. Thumb swiped the screen. No signal.

Of course.

You stared at it anyway, breath still shaky. You always wanted to talk to him first after you made it out of something like this. He’d understand the thrill of it, the madness. It was the kind of story he’d eat up with a crooked grin and a thousand questions.

But he wasn’t here to tell.

You locked the screen and let the phone fall into your lap. For a second, you thought about lying back again and just letting the sun bake the exhaustion out of your bones, but basecamp would be expecting you soon, and someone would sound an alert if you didn’t check in by dusk.

So you stood, slow and stiff, brushing sand from your trousers and tugging your gear into place. The tomb was silent now. The trap had reset. The dust was already beginning to settle over the stones like it had never been disturbed.

And wasn’t that just the way of things?

You turned toward the horizon and began the walk back, sand crunching under your boots and the phantom sound of Sebastian’s voice echoing somewhere in your chest.

Camp was a half hour away, maybe more with the heat and the weight of fatigue pulling at your limbs. The sun was sinking low now, casting everything in gold and rust, and the wind had picked up just enough to sting your cheeks with dry grit.

You kept walking.

You passed the jagged rocks that marked the ridge, then the weathered outcrop where the local team had set up signal beacons weeks ago, now half-buried in sand.

The first torches were being lit when you finally reached camp, their flickering light casting long shadows across the canvas tents and makeshift pathways. The air smelled faintly of roasted meat, soot, and dust.

A few heads turned as you passed—nods, quick once-overs, someone offering a tired, “You good?”

You nodded. “Fine. Just a collapse. North tunnel. Nothing major.”

Nobody pressed. You were all used to bruises and near-misses by now.

Inside your tent, you peeled off your gear piece by piece, hands stiff and sore. Your shirt clung to your back, damp with sweat and dust, and your trousers were streaked with sandstone grit and dried blood from a shallow cut on your thigh you hadn’t even registered until now.

You sat down hard on your cot and exhaled.

The tent was dim, lit only by the spill of golden light through the canvas flap and the soft glow of a lantern swinging from a hook. Your mirror hung crooked above the footlocker, scratched and warped at the edges from too many field packs and transport jostles.

You caught your reflection and paused.

Not the same girl who left Hogwarts. The sharp lines of adolescence had blurred into womanhood. Your hips were fuller now, your arms softer, your face a little rounder in the cheeks.

You leaned forward slightly, tugged your shirt away from your skin, angled your body in the mirror like that might make a difference.

It didn’t.

You tried not to care. You tried not to hear the voice in your head whispering he never felt that way about you back then, and there’s certainly no chance now.

You rubbed at your face, trying to shake the thought loose, and failing.

Sebastian had never once commented on your body, but you’d seen the pattern in the girls he’d snogged back at school. The Samantha Dales of the world, slim and polished and perfect. Girls who looked effortless in skirts and who never seemed to worry about how they took up space. Girls who didn’t stumble over their words or laugh too loud or tug self-consciously at the hems of their jumpers.

You didn’t resent them. You just… weren’t them.

Getting to your feet, you grabbed your towel from where it was slung over the corner of your trunk and turned toward the showers, muscles aching with every step. All you wanted was to rinse off the tomb dust, scrub the dried blood from your leg, and stand under the water until your thoughts quieted down.

You ducked out into the main pathway, feet dragging a little in your worn boots, when a familiar voice called your name.

“Hey—hold up a second.”

You turned to find your supervisor, an older Cursebreaker named Chandra, striding toward you with a clipboard tucked under one arm and a half-eaten fig in the other.

“North tunnel, right?” she asked, glancing you over. “Heard it collapsed.”

You nodded. “Yeah. I’m fine. Just some bruises.”

“Lucky,” she said. “Most people don’t walk out of a Type III trigger room with just bruises. Good instincts.”

You didn’t really know what to say to that, so you offered a tired shrug.

Chandra glanced at her clipboard. “Listen, I’ve got an opening.”

You blinked. “What kind of opening?”

“Rotation slot. Five days. Could be six, depending on weather. We’ve got a newer team flying in to take over Site 8 temporarily. You’re due for a break anyway. Figured I’d offer it before putting it to the rest of the team.”

Your first instinct was yes. God, yes. Five days of clean sheets and warm meals that didn’t come out of a tin. Of falling asleep without worrying about tripwires or heatstroke. You hadn’t been home in two years. You could visit Ominis. You could see Anne. You could see him.

But your stomach twisted at the thought. The idea of standing in front of Sebastian after all this time, looking different than he remembered… it made your throat close.

You forced a smile. “Thanks. But I should stay. Too much going on here. Better if I don’t fall behind.”

Chandra studied you for a beat too long but didn’t argue. Just nodded and scribbled something on her clipboard.

“Your call,” she said. “Just don’t wait until your limbs start falling off to take your next break.”

You gave a polite laugh. She wandered off.

You stood there for a second, towel in hand, wondering why you always did this. Why you always said no to the things you wanted most.

Then you turned and made your way toward the showers, telling yourself it was fine. It wasn’t the right time. You’d go take a break next time.

Maybe.

The showers were barely lukewarm, sputtering out in weak spurts that never quite rinsed away the grit. You stood under the stream for your allotted ten minutes, watching the water turn brown at your feet before swirling down the drain. It stung a little as it passed over the cut on your thigh.

The mirror above the rusted tap was no less unforgiving than the one in your tent. You didn’t linger. Just tied your damp hair back, toweled off with the speed of someone used to racing the clock, and redressed in a fresh shirt and your loosest trousers.

Dinner was the same it had been all week—some variation of lentils and rice, bulk-cooked in a blackened cauldron and ladled onto plates with mechanical efficiency. You took your usual seat under the canvas awning near the back, where the air was a bit cooler and the din of conversation faded into low background hum.

You ate slowly, forcing each bite down like routine. It wasn’t the food that bothered you. It was the ache behind your ribs, the tight coil of something unresolved that had been winding tighter for what felt like an eternity.

You told yourself it was just the exhaustion. The long days. The endless dust and bureaucracy and heatstroke headaches.

But you knew the truth.

You missed him.

After dinner, you walked up the ridge alone. No one stopped your or asked where you were going. They knew your routines by now. Knew you had people elsewhere. That you were always looking for a signal.

You reached the top, boots crunching against dry rock and sand, and pulled out your phone.

Two bars.

It was a goddamn miracle.

Twenty-seven new texts. Four missed calls. Six new voice memos. All from the same name.

Sebastian.

You didn’t open them right away. You just stood there for a minute, phone clutched in your hand, staring out across the vast horizon as dusk wrapped the world in shades of violet.

Then you sat down on a warm stone, legs crossed beneath you, and opened the messages. Most of them were exactly what you’d expect; equal parts worried and ridiculous, in true Sebastian fashion.

“Are you alive or just ignoring me?”

“Ominis says hi. He also says I’m insufferable when you’re gone.”

“There’s a new café near the Ministry that does pumpkin spice cold brew. I tried it. Thought of you. It was foul. But you’d love it.”

“Seriously though. Just let me know you’re okay, yeah?”

“They had to pair me with a rookie on patrol yesterday. I deserve hazard pay.”

You let out a quiet breath that was almost a laugh. Your eyes stung, but you blinked it away. Then you moved to the voice memos. The first was short.

“Alright, Cursebreaker. Starting to think you’ve joined a cult. Or gotten lost. Or are too famous now for us regular Ministry folk. If you’re not dead, message me back.”

The second had been sent later that same day.

“Sorry. That came out wrong. You’re probably just busy. Or stuck in a mountain or something. I just…” A pause. “Never mind. Just… let me know you’re alright, yeah?”

You listened to them one by one, each one more vulnerable than the last. A running commentary of his week: an annoying paperwork mix-up, a late night on patrol, Ominis catching him sneaking biscuits from the shared cupboard. Mundane, silly things. But his voice had that edge to it. That tension he only got when he was worried.

In the last one, he sounded tired.

“They filed the entire report under the wrong Sebastian. Took me three hours to prove I didn’t hex a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. I wasn’t even in Edinburgh. Anyway. I hate everything. Except you… assuming you’re alive.”

That one broke you a little. Your thumb hovered over the screen for a long moment. Then you hit record. Your voice came out quiet, low with exhaustion but laced with something warm.

“Just got reception. Still alive. Dusty, bruised, possibly concussed… but alive. Today I set off an trap meant to crush me under four tons of decorative ceiling, but you know. Occupational hazard.”

You paused, thumb brushing the ridge of your phone, then exhaled slowly.

“Missed hearing your voice. Sorry it’s been so long. Wasn’t avoiding you, I swear, just couldn’t get a signal all bloody week."

Another pause. You swallowed, trying not to overthink it.

“Anyway. I’m okay. I promise. Tired. A little worn down. But okay.”

Then, after a breath, softer:

“You’re still the first person I want to talk to after a day like this. That hasn’t changed.”

You debated adding something more, sarcasm, maybe, or a joke to soften the weight of it, but in the end, you just hit send and sat there while the wind tugged gently at your sleeves.

Your phone buzzed. You fumbled it open. Sebastian had sent new voice a new voice memo. You hit play.

“Bloody hell,” he said, voice low and disbelieving. “I was starting to think I’d have to file a missing persons report. Don’t scare me like that again, yeah?”

You smiled.

“...It’s good to hear your voice” he went on. “Even if you do sound half-dead. The hell do they do to you lot out there? Honestly. Ancient death traps, collapsing tunnels… I’m starting to think your career choice was a personal attack on my blood pressure.”

You laughed quietly, forehead pressed to your knees, eyes stinging.

“Also, just for the record, if you had been crushed by a ceiling, I’d never forgive you." He paused, then added, almost sheepishly, “Glad you’re okay. Really. I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear your voice until I did.”

Your chest swelled with something tight and bittersweet.

You tapped your phone against your knee, debating a reply, but your thoughts were slow now—dulled by exhaustion, by relief, by that aching, half-buried longing you’d tried to keep at bay.

Instead, you just texted back, “I’m okay, I promise. Just dust and bruises. Talk more soon?”

The reply came almost immediately.

“More always.”

Then he sent another voice recording. You tapped play without thinking and there it was.

A soft, familiar hum. The same absentminded tune he used to whistle when you were studying in the library together, or sprawled out across the floor of the Undercroft with books open and parchment everywhere. The melody wasn’t anything special—just something he'd made up once and never stopped doing—but it was his. It was home.

You pressed your free hand to your mouth. You definitely didn’t cry.

Well… maybe you did. Just a little.

Just enough that it blurred the edge of the stars overhead. Just enough that your breath caught when the message ended and silence crept back in, broken only by the wind skimming over the ridge.

You wiped your cheeks with the heel of your palm. Sniffed. Shook your head and laughed at yourself.

Then you whispered to no one, “You bloody sap.”

The tune still echoed in your ears. And when you headed back down to your tent, you hummed it too.

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quinnsallow · 2 days ago

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♥️

Almost, Always | Sebastian Sallow x Reader

Chapter Two

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A story of almosts, maybes, and finallys. You and Sebastian Sallow have loved each other for years, just never at the right time.

Words: ~2,500

Content Warnings: Sexual Assault, Trauma, Abortion (Non-Descriptive), Strong Emotional Themes

Chapter Track: Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd

Special thanks to @sunnyrealist for beta-ing the plot of this story and @dreamy-gal-30 for beta-ing the chapter drafts! I could not do this without you!

Sebastian, Age 19

Sebastian's boots echoed off the slick cobblestones as he turned the corner near Diagon Alley, wand loose in his hand, shoulders hunched against the London drizzle. The fog had settled in again, clinging to every lamp post like it was trying to smother the city. It was cold, damp, and miserably grey.

"This is what I get for scoring top marks," he muttered under his breath. "To be a glorified hallway monitor."

He was on patrol. Low-stakes, boring, uneventful. Nothing but puddles and pigeons for company. Still, he went through the motions—checking alley mouths, scanning corners, making a show of alertness for the benefit of no one. His breath fogged in the air, and he clenched his jaw to keep from shivering.

It had been almost a year since he last saw you in person.

You were supposed to be here. You. Him. Ominis. The three of you had talked about it like it was fate. But when it came time to sign the Auror contracts, you'd backed out. Signed on for a Cursebreaker apprenticeship halfway across the world, instead.

Sebastian didn’t know what hurt more—that you’d left in the first place, or that he didn't understand why.

He slowed near a bench just outside Flourish & Blotts, pulled his phone from his pocket, and stared at the screen.

No new messages.

Not that he’d expected one.

You never had proper reception. Not in the mountains of Peru or the ruins outside Petra or wherever you’d ended up this week. Half your messages came through hours or days late, sometimes sent three times in a row when your connection finally caught up.

Sebastian still read every one the second it arrived, though.

He thumbed through your chat thread. It was miles long with a thousand half-finished conversations, stupid memes, pictures of cursed artifacts you’d found on digs, and voice memos sent at odd hours. Yet, somehow, it still never felt like enough.

Impulsively, Sebastian hit record.

“It’s miserable out tonight," he started. "Proper swamp weather. Nearly slipped on wet moss outside a pub earlier and broke my arse in front of a delivery guy. Very dignified Auror moment.”

He started walking again, keeping his voice low and casual.

“Anyway. I’m on central patrol this week, so that’s exciting. If by exciting you mean soul-crushingly boring. You know what this job really needs? A mandatory tea break. Maybe with biscuits. The good kind, too. Not the dry ones Ominis keeps buying ‘because they were on sale.’”

He paused as the rain began to pick up again, slicking his curls to his forehead.

“London’s bloody dull without you, Cursebreaker. Place feels off-balance or something. Like it’s missing… I don’t know. Its charm.”

A breath. He almost said you, but didn’t.

“I miss your voice,” he muttered, then immediately added, “Your updates, I mean. Voice memos.”

He cringed at himself, then scrubbed a hand through his hair, letting the phone fall to his side for a moment before lifting it again.

“Anyway. Message back if you don’t get eaten by a vault. Or cursed. Or married to a desert spirit or whatever it is you lot do out there.”

He hit send before he could change his mind. And then, like a bloody idiot, he played one of your old voice notes just to hear your voice again. You were laughing about a cursed lamp in Romania that kept turning itself upside down. Something about it "throwing shade" in the most literal sense. He'd heard it a dozen times by now, maybe more.

He closed his eyes for a second, letting the sound settle deep in his chest. It didn’t fix the cold. Didn’t fix the ache that had taken up permanent residence somewhere just behind his ribs. But it helped.

And then, just like that, the moment passed.

Sebastian tucked his phone back into his coat, adjusted his wand holster, and kept walking, jaw tight. The streets were still, save for the occasional flicker of movement in a shop window or a cat darting across the street.

By the time he got home later that night, the drizzle had soaked through his coat. He let himself inside and kicked off his boots in the narrow entry.

The place was cozy but chaotic. Hoodies were draped over chairs, books were stacked two and three high on every surface. One of Ominis’s records was spinning lazily on the old player in the corner.

Sebastian shrugged off his coat and slung it over the back of the couch, glancing toward the kitchen table.

There it was. Your postcard. The newest one.

Ominis must have grabbed it from the mailroom.

He walked over and picked it up. It was from Morocco. The cardstock was sun-bleached at the edges, like it had soaked in the heat of the place it came from. A photograph of winding alleyways and vibrant market stalls stretched across the front.

Sebastian turned it over.

Don’t trust the carpets here. They bite.

You’d signed it with your usual scrawl and your usual little drawing. This time, it was a snarling rug with big eyes and stubby fangs.

He smiled despite himself. Then he walked to his bedroom and pinned it on the mirror next to all the others. There were so many now he could hardly see his reflection anymore, but he didn’t move them.

They were like breadcrumbs, proof that you still existed in his world, even if only in pieces of parchment and ink.

Some of them were wrinkled from being carried too long in a pocket. A few were stained with tea or rain. One still smelled faintly of firewood. And every single one bore your name in that loopy, impatient script followed by a silly little doodle.

He stared at the newest addition, its corner brushing up against one from Greece. You’d drawn a cyclops in a sunhat on that one.

Sebastian’s throat tightened.

He hadn’t seen you in person in a year. Hadn’t heard your laugh in real time, hadn’t had to argue with you over who got the last biscuit or listen to you mutter under your breath while you annotated your notes or corrected his with that annoying little “actually” voice you used when you knew you were right and wanted him to know it too.

He missed that. Missed you.

The real you. Not the ghost that lived in postcards and voice memos and a dozen shared memories he couldn’t stop replaying. Not the version he built up in his head at night when he lay in bed and tried to imagine what your hair looked like in Egypt, or whether you still wore that jumper with the frayed cuffs when it got cold.

He didn’t want breadcrumbs. He wanted the whole thing. The full story. The truth about why you left and why you stayed gone.

He fell back onto his unmade bed, eyes drifting to the ceiling as the ache in his chest deepened.

Sebastian was about to go over it again. That conversation in the Undercroft. The one where you’d told him you’d changed your mind and you weren’t joining the Auror program after all. That you'd been offered something else, a Cursebreaker apprenticeship, a chance to travel, to learn, to do something different.

He was right there again, the phantom of that moment wrapping around him like a noose—“It’s not that I don’t want to, Bas. It’s just… I have to see what this becomes”—but then the front door creaked open and shut.

Boots. A coat being shrugged off. The telltale click of the record player being turned down.

Then footsteps padded down the hallway.

The bedroom door creaked open, and Ominis stepped inside, arms crossed, brows lifted in that way that said he was preparing a lecture.

“You’re lying on top of the covers again,” he said evenly. “Which either means you’re procrastinating laundry, or you’re back on your mopey warpath. Judging by the smell of wet wool and despair, I’m guessing the latter.”

Sebastian didn’t move. “Good to see you too, sunshine.”

"So you got the postcard."

Sebastian didn’t answer. Just let out a long, tired exhale.

Ominis sighed. “You know, for someone who insists she’s just your best friend, it’s a bit strange you’ve got twenty-three of those things pinned up like religious icons.”

"Who's counting." Sebastian muttered.

“You,” Ominis replied dryly.

Sebastian let out a frustrated sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan. “You don’t get it.”

"No?" Ominis stepped further into the room, pulling out the desk chair and flipping it backward before sitting with his arms crossed on the top. “Enlighten me, then. Because I'm pretty sure she's my best friend too, Sebastian, but I haven't got a bloody shrine to her on my mirror.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes. “It’s not a shrine.”

“Oh no, of course not,” Ominis said, deadpan. “It’s a completely normal, emotionally detached collection of travel correspondence from the girl you’re definitely not in love with.”

Sebastian flopped back onto the bed with a groan and covered his face with one arm.

"Look, I miss her, alright? Is that what you wanted me to say?"

“No."

Sebastian dragged his arm off his face and sat up. “Fine. I’m in love with someone who’s halfway across the bloody world and barely returns my messages. Happy?”

“Yes!” Ominis said, throwing his hands up. “Because it’s true! Everyone knows it! Hell, the portrait downstairs in the lobby probably knows it, and he’s stuck in 1762. Everyone knows except maybe her. Though frankly, I'd be shocked if she hasn’t figured it out by now."

Sebastian leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like it might hold some kind of answer. “If she knew and she ever felt the same, she would’ve stayed.”

Ominis sighed. "Feelings are messy, Sebastian. You’ve got her floating somewhere between saint and myth but she’s a person. She gets scared and bleeds just like everyone else."

Sebastian didn’t say anything.

“You want to know what I think?" Ominis leaned forward. "I think she loved you. But I also think you spent your time screwing around with Samantha Dale and she didn’t know how to come back from that.”

Sebastian’s jaw clenched. “That’s not true.”

Ominis raised an eyebrow. “How do you think you'd have felt if she spent her time shagging Leander?"

Sebastian visibly recoiled. “That’s disgusting.”

“Exactly,” Ominis said, voice dry.

“...Samantha and I weren’t serious,” Sebastian muttered eventually, but it sounded pathetic even to his own ears.

“That doesn’t matter.” Ominis shook his head. “You can’t fuck someone else and expect the girl you actually want to wait around until you finally grow a pair and confess your feelings."

Sebastian stood up, restless. He paced across the room, running a hand through his hair. “What do you want me to do, then? Send a dramatic owl apologizing? Apparate halfway across the world and declare myself like some tragic protagonist in a shitty romance novel?”

“Well for starters,” Ominis said, arms still folded. “I want you to stop trying to shag the feelings out of your system.”

Sebastian scoffed. “Oh, come on, Samantha and I broke up a year ago—”

“—and how many girls have there been since?” Ominis cut in sharply. “Don’t play dumb, Sebastian. And it’s not just about your emotional masochism. At this point, it’s logistical. I never know when I’m going to walk into the kitchen and find some half-dressed stranger rifling through our pantry or asking me how I make my coffee blind.”

Sebastian blinked. “Have they actually asked that?"

“Twice. Once last month, and once two weeks before that."

Sebastian scrubbed a hand down his face, groaning. “Merlin, I’m sorry.”

“She asked if I needed help finding the cream,” Ominis said with the tone of a man long-suffering. “I told her the only thing I needed was for her to leave.”

Sebastian wheezed. “That’s brutal.”

“Necessary,” Ominis countered. “Especially considering the fact that every single one of them looks or sounds like her."

Sebastian stilled.

"Height, hair, voice, laugh. One of them even had that same ridiculous habit of talking with her hands like she was trying to conduct an orchestra.”

Sebastian stared at the floor, jaw tight.

"Look," Ominis said with a sigh. “I’m not saying this to be cruel. It's just it feels like your holding auditions for a poor man’s version of the girl you actually want. But trust me when I say you’re not sleeping your way out of this. You're not going to find her in these strangers, Sebastian."

“I’m not trying to make it harder," Sebastian dropped onto the edge of the bed again with a sigh. "I’m just— what else am I supposed to do, Ominis? She left. She didn’t tell me why. She’s off in whatever ancient tomb or mountain or market, living her life, and I’m supposed to just… what? Sit here and pine?”

“Yes,” Ominis said, dry as dust. “With a modicum of grace, preferably.”

Sebastian shot him a look. “You are the worst therapist.”

Ominis smiled, faint and fond. “Only because I’ve had eight years of practice dealing with you.”

Sebastian snorted. “That sounds like grounds for sainthood.”

“Or institutionalization,” Ominis said with a lopsided grin. “But we’ll see which comes first.”

Sebastian dropped his head into his hands. Ominis let the quiet settle between them for a moment, then leaned forward, voice softening just slightly.

“She didn’t leave because she didn’t care.”

Sebastian lifted his head, brow furrowed. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” Ominis said firmly. “I know her. And I know you. And you two were never casual about each other."

The silence that followed stretched long and taut between them, full of all the things Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to say out loud. The sound of the rain tapping faintly against the windowpane filled the space instead.

Eventually, Ominis stood up slowly, brushing nonexistent lint from his trousers. “Come on,” he said, tone lighter now. “Let’s go get a pint. You look like you need one, and I definitely do after all this emotional labor.”

Sebastian huffed a laugh. “You really know how to lift a bloke’s spirits.”

“It’s one of my many gifts,” Ominis said, already heading for the door. “You’ve got five minutes to put on a clean shirt or I’m going without you.”

The door clicked shut behind him. Sebastian didn’t move right away. Just sat there on the edge of the bed, staring at the carpet.

Then, with a quiet exhale, he reached for his phone to open your text conversation.

The voice memo he’d sent earlier still sat unopened. He typed out a text anyway.

Got the postcard. Still can’t decide if that doodle’s supposed to be adorable or a direct threat. Either way, Morocco looks insane.

He paused, then added.

Miss your voice, Cursebreaker. Even the ‘actually, Sebastian…’ tone.

He hit send, slipped the phone back into his pocket, and changed into a clean shirt before following Ominis out the door.

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