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lunarmoves · 1 month ago

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who i see, looking back at me (ch2)

pairing: sebastian solace x reader

mentions: post-urbanshade fic, no use of y/n or pronouns, u are his partner <3, hallucinations, grief/mourning, non-sexual intimacy, touch aversion, hurt/comfort, ooc sebastian probably, again taking creative liberties with his mom and siblings, tentative reconnecting :)

a/n: so this fic is now 4 chapters instead of 2. what happened, u ask? i have no idea. i blame sebastian. also, i made some minor edits to ch1- nothing too major, i just changed sebastian's age from 32 to 33 LOL. i found out pressure takes place in 2025 when he's 32, so i nudged it up a lil. not that telling u guys this makes a difference dsjfhj. i used the urbanshade wiki for a lot of his info btw. anyways, hope u guys enjoy, bon apple teeth!

word count: 11k+

masterlist | part one

ao3 link

In the following days, a storm swept its way down the coast, confining you to your cottage when you weren’t at work.

You sat at the window in your living room overlooking the sea, watching the way rain drummed against the glass. You could hear the way the wind battered the walls of your cottage, a low whistling echoing from a window you likely didn’t close properly. The sky was swollen with dark, heavy clouds that lit up with the occasional fork of white lightning. The rumbles of thunder that followed were loud enough for you to feel in your chest, and you enjoyed sipping at a warm drink as you read a book in the evenings before bed.

After watching the way the waves crashed viciously against the sand and rocks of the shore—following the push and pull of the storm—you wondered if you should be worried about possible flooding. You’d think you’d be used to it after living by the sea for so long. But no, the water was not agitated enough to reach your little cottage at the top of the cove, so you did not think too much about it.

What you did have to worry about, however, were leaks.

“Ah, shit,” you hissed as you toed a bucket under a steadily dripping wet spot on your ceiling. You’d never had to deal with them before, but then again, the winds of this storm were certainly strong. They could’ve knocked something loose. Your cottage was old enough that you wouldn’t be surprised.

“Least there aren’t too many,” Sebastian remarked as he stood next to another bucket. He stared up at the point of leakage, a drop falling every few seconds. “Either deal with them every storm or bust out some tools to fix them, shouldn’t be too difficult, even for you.”

You hummed out something of an agreement, ignoring the little jab at the end. You’d never been the one to do the tinkering or fixing around the house, preferring to observe him instead as he worked. You had to learn things yourself, over the years. It didn’t make it any less painful.

(“Put that engineering degree to work,” you told him as you always did each and every time, then grinned when he gave you that same squinted glare.

“Mechanical engineering is not equal to fixing a pipe,” he grumbled back at you, pointing the wrench in his hand in your direction as you hovered by the bathroom doorway. He lifted his head just enough from the cupboard of the sink to meet your gaze in the mirror in front of him. “Neither is hanging a painting on the wall. Or swapping out lightbulbs, for that matter.”

You just smiled at him, not bothering to hide the way your gaze trailed along the muscles of his back and shoulders—forming shadows along the black tank top he wore. He made a face at you that had you biting your tongue to hold back a laugh.

“It is to me,” you replied in amusement. His groan only made your lips stretch wider. “Chop chop, nerd.”)

You sighed, a weary thing that you felt deep in your chest, and frowned out at your living room with its couple of buckets collecting water. Sebastian lifted his palm just under the leak he stood by. You watched him for a moment before turning away as another drop fell towards his hand.

It felt like ages before you finally found yourself waking up to a sliver of bright, warm sunshine through your curtained window. You could finally pack away the buckets scattered around your home, lazily eyeing the spots on the ceiling where the water had dripped through. You��d need to borrow a ladder from someone so you could inspect the roof. You would deal with that later, you decided.

You opened your front door to breathe in the fresh air of a storm long gone—the earthy smell accompanied by a salty seabreeze that promised better days. Clear skies with feathery wisps of clouds accompanied you all the way to work, where you and your coworker made plans to reschedule that dinner you both had meant to grab before the storm reared its ugly head and sent everything awry.

And once you got back home after a long shift, you took some time to pick your way down the shore to walk alongside the lazy ebbing of the tide.

The storm had washed up quite a few things. Bits of driftwood and seaweed, mostly. But occasionally a glimmer of something shiny would catch your eye, buried partially within the sand. You ended up wandering around for a bit, digging up seashells or small rocks that caught the light in just the right way when you held them up in front of your face.

Eventually, as the sun danced along the horizon and sent its golden light to caress the planes of the earth, you ended up on the dock. Your pockets clicked and clacked with your findings as you walked down its length, the wood only mildly damp now from the days of endless rainfall. The boards creaked under each of your steps, and when you finally stopped at the dock’s edge, you paused for a moment to peer down at it.

It—looked utterly ruined. Splintered pieces of wood that still held on through the storm poked out along the damaged planks. You frowned as you squinted at it. The edge was broken in a way that alluded to three separate points of destruction—the wood cracked and jagged like the maw of a hungry beast. Your lips pursed. Damage from the storm, no doubt. Maybe the vicious waves. Either way, it looked like you couldn’t sit here anymore until it was flagged and repaired. A shame, really. You glanced around at the rest of the undamaged dock.

You supposed you could simply… sit elsewhere upon it. But… You grimaced to yourself as you swept your gaze across the calm waters. No prickle of your skin. No teal glow. No familiar rasp of a voice that made something in your chest ache. That did not mean it would not happen again, however. You were wary. Your own home you could not escape from him, but the dock you certainly could.

Maybe you should spend your evenings somewhere else for a bit.

And that was how you found yourself down in the cove in the days that followed. It was not a place you frequented as often as the dock when you just wanted to lounge around—you needed to scale quite a few rocks to make it to the little beach within it—but it was just as gorgeous. Calm. Quiet. You could sit on the sand and watch the tide rise lazily to brush against your feet.

Here, you felt protected—the cove curving in such a way where you were surrounded on almost all sides by rock apart from the section of the sea in front of you. Not many people ventured over here, preferring to stick by the wider—more open—stretch of the beach. You didn’t mind. All the more peace for you.

You were feeling reminiscent, one particular evening, and decided to bring out that ukulele you’d purchased so long ago. It mostly sat in a corner of your room, collecting dust. But occasionally, you felt the urge to strum a couple of chords in some resemblance of a song—as clumsy and out-of-tune as they were.

You sat cross-legged in the cove, far enough from the water’s edge that it could not reach you for a couple of feet. The sun had long started its descent, making the water sparkle like gems were littered under its surface. A few seagulls cawed overhead, close enough that you occasionally glanced upwards to watch them circle about in the air.

Ukulele balanced partially on your lap, you squinted down at the card that came with it that had the finger positions for some chords drawn out. The card rested on the sand in front of your shin, and you frowned at it as you strummed out a rough-sounding G-chord.

“That’s not right,” you muttered to yourself as you adjusted your fingers on the fretboard. You gave another strum. It sounded clearer—if marginally. “There we go.”

Now to switch to an F-chord. You repositioned your fingers and strummed again. Not bad. Definitely better sounding than your G, that was for sure. The pads of your fingers were starting to ache with how hard you pressed down onto the strings. Your wrist too, for that matter.

After learning a few more chords, you started to idly strum away, searching for a tune. A lot of songs could be played just by using the C-, G-, and F-chords, you noted. Between your mindless down and up motions along the strings, you caught a faint glimpse of an old song you used to hear in your youth. And so, you chased after it, murmuring the words under your breath.

“No, that’s not…” You trailed off as you switched between a G and C, fingers moving slowly. Ah, the order did not sound right to your ears. Maybe an F should follow the G instead. You gave it a try and scrunched your nose when it sounded odd again. “Ah… man.”

A voice suddenly spoke up from somewhere in front of you—low and musing. “Ukulele, huh? When’d you pick it up?”

A brief glance upwards revealed exactly who you’d expected, even as something sank to the soles of your feet. Sebastian lounged stomach-down in the low shallows of the water, head propped up atop his hands as he watched you with half-lidded, squinted eyes. Close, yet not too close that he reached the point where the water’s edge kissed the beach.

The distance, however, was not your main focus.

Behind his upper body, you could see the stretch of a long, thick tail as it trailed towards the sea. Massive, in its entirety, and resembling a snake of sorts. Its posterior side glistened with gray-blue scales that caught the light in a nearly mesmerizing way. There were these black straps that criss-crossed along his tail all the way up to the base of large, whale-like flukes that were arched out of the water. Why the straps were there, you did not know.

He was much larger than you’d thought he was.

You averted your gaze and looked back down at your instrument. Truly, you did not know why he looked so different out here. You didn’t like the way it made you feel. Were you losing your grip on him—his memory? The last fragments of him that you had? No. No.

You didn’t like that at all.

“Helloooo?” Sebastian called, voice pitching upwards. “I asked you a question. Gonna just leave me hanging here?”

You huffed through your nose. He should know this. “Not too long ago,” you told him anyway, squinting slightly at him.

His eyes crinkled into upturned crescents at your response—short as it was. “There, was that so hard now?” His voice dripped with condescension. One of his ear fins gave a little flick. “So, have you realized that it’s actually me, yet?”

You didn’t answer, turning your attention back to your ukulele.

He sighed like he was holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. “That’s what I thought.”

He was quiet as you spent some time strumming away. You were determined to figure out the right chords for this vague song, but you were severely lacking the knowledge of what they might be. You switched back to learning more finger positions from the chord card. Maybe it would fill in some gaps.

“Your thumb is too high on the neck,” Sebastian suddenly said after a while, earning him a quick glance from you. He pointed at your hand. “You’re gonna hurt your wrist like that, babe. It’s also restricting your movements. Lower it some more so that it’s not sticking above the fretboard.” He paused for a second, then added, “Also the strum zone is a little higher than that.”

You mulled over his words for a bit, then adjusted your hold. Playing a few different chords, you realized that yes, it was easier to switch your finger positions now. Sounded much smoother as well. You hummed to yourself.

“You really think if I wasn’t real that I’d be able to give you advice like that?” he asked pointedly, eyes falling into a half-lidded gaze. “Tell you shit you didn’t know about?”

You pursed your lips. You… guessed so. But you had done some online research when you’d first bought the ukulele to learn more about it, being a novice and all. You were certain you’d read about correct positioning before—maybe you forgot but some level of your mind stored the information. You weren’t well versed in the workings of the human brain, particularly when it came to your… situation. You only offered Sebastian a shrug. He sighed deeply and grumbled something under his breath that you couldn’t quite make out.

You went back to trying to figure out the song you’d distantly caught onto before. C-chord, followed by an E minor, G—wait no, an A minor actually—then an F. You were making some progress, as small as it was.

The discordant notes from your ukulele mixed in with the steady swelling of the waves. Somewhere above, there was the caw of a seagull—sharp and piercing. Occasionally, there would be a small splash out in the distance, either from a fish jumping out of the water or a bird diving for a meal. You breathed in and—

Splat!

You made a surprised, strangled noise, something immensely cold and wet and slimy landing directly on your face. You couldn’t even really process what was happening before you felt it slide down and land on your lap. Your face scrunched up, disgusted, then you jumped slightly when laughter erupted from somewhere in front of you.

“Oh my fucking god,” Sebastian wheezed, and your gaze shot towards him to see him practically curled up in a shaking ball. His tail slapped at the water, once, then twice when he rolled around to clutch at his stomach. “H-Holy shit that was funnier than I’d expected it to be oh my god your face! I think I’m gonna piss.” He lifted himself up just enough to look at you, then he burst out into cackles again.

“Hwhuh?” you said, still stunned. He laughed even harder, and you took the time to look down at your lap at your assailant. You blinked at it and felt your lips pull back in some strange grimace.

It was a wad of seaweed—fishy-smelling and gross and goddamnit it was soaking into your clothes and got all over your ukulele—

“Oh man, I missed doing that so much.” Sebastian wiped a tear from one of his teal eyes and grinned sharply at you. “Never change, babe. Never change.”

You only made another sound, picking up the seaweed with one of your hands and flinging it off to the side. You could still feel the residue, well, everywhere. Coating your cheeks and your eyelids and your mouth. It was foul. You swiped your hand down your face in an attempt to get rid of it. You were not all too successful.

Sebastian chortled, then leaned back down with his head propped atop his palm, fixing you with a suddenly calculating stare. The tide swept up and around his body. “So? Would I have been able to do that if I wasn’t real, hm?”

For a moment, you just watched him. His nonchalant pose. His gaze firmly trained on your own. The way his third arm did a little finger wave at you, a gold ring glinting on its fourth finger. You stared, and you stared. Then, you turned to look at the clump of seaweed. After a beat or two, you looked up at the inky sky—where those seagulls still circled overhead. Sebastian followed your gaze.

He paused.

“Wait. Don’t tell me”—he let out a laugh, incredulous, almost—“you think that was the birds?”

A scoff escaped your lips. “What else would it be?” you grumbled, mostly to yourself. You needed a shower, and you needed it immediately. You stood up to dust the sand off your clothes with one hand, the other occupied with holding your poor ukulele.

“Babe,” he groaned, one of his hands raking down his face. His lips trembled, minute. “You’re gonna feel real stupid once you realize I’m actually here, you know.”

You only huffed and wiped at your face again, eye twitching ever so slightly.

And that was how the next few days went.

He would show up whenever you were in the cove at night. Always making these remarks at you to get you to think that he wasn’t just some illusion you’d cooked up. Making you think that the splashes of water you felt on your legs or arms were from him and not the tide. When you moved back to the dock in an attempt to evade him, he followed you there too, and did the same thing again and again and again.

And all the while, he looked as though he was battling something internally. What that was, you were uncertain. But it didn’t matter, did it? He was just an extension of your own thoughts, your own mind.

Ignore, just ignore him like you always do, you told yourself repeatedly. He would eventually stop talking. He would eventually go away. But he never did.

And one night you just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Did you ever want to start a family?” he mused at you one evening in the cove, tail flicking idly behind him. You felt like you’d been doused in icy cold water as you stared down at the book in your lap. Eyes stuck on one word, but not truly seeing it. “We never really talked about it, did we?”

Your jaw tensed. No. No you didn’t.

“Ah, we were so young,” he continued in a quiet voice. “I’d say time has flown, but it didn’t. Not to me.” You did not need to look at him to know he was staring directly at you. The back of your neck prickled. “You’re what, thirty-four, now?” He chuckled. “You look just as I’d remembered.”

The way it was said—soft, tender, like an admission murmured in the darkness of night—added fuel to the way something wrenched itself fiercely in your gut. Paralyzed you on the ground. Your grip on your book tightened. Your gaze landed on your wedding ring, still bright and vivid even after all these years with the care you used to handle it.

It was quiet.

“I’m sorry, you know?” A confession, whispered so gently you almost thought you didn’t hear it. “I’m sorry I was gone. Not that either of us could’ve done anything about it at this point. But I’m sorry I left you for so long, for what it’s worth. Maybe if I hadn’t been…” He trailed off, the implication of his words settling around your neck like a noose. “Well. I wonder sometimes about what could’ve been if all this shit didn’t happen.”

It was never ending, this pain. That you carried on a day-by-day basis, heavy like you wore chains around your ankles and wrists. Your heart. It would be easier to let yourself sink into the ocean, you think. Maybe it would be better than the endless hollowness you felt everywhere in your body.

Sometimes it felt like time did not aid you in healing. You were unsure if it ever truly would.

“I thought about you every day,” he whispered, voice thick with emotions you could not bear to decipher. “Every. Single. Day.”

Something deep inside you cracked like porcelain set too roughly atop a surface. You didn’t want to hear this, you didn’t want to hear this anymore.

“Stop— just stop,” you moaned out, wrenching your grip from your book so you could claw at your head. Your eyes squeezed shut. A dull ache throbbed beneath your fingers. “Leave me alone.”

“No,” he instead said firmly, low cadence to his tone. “I’m not gonna do that. Not now. You finally listening to me?”

You shook your head and covered your face with your hands that shook like you were one step away from being unbalanced. This Sebastian was persistent and talkative in a way that your Sebastian in your cottage was not.

And it hurt. More than anything in this world, it hurt.

“I can’t do this anymore,” you choked out, a fierce stinging making itself present behind your eyes. “I-I can’t. I can’t.”

You thought about your cottage—that had seemed small, at first. But when you stood in the space of your living room and looked around at the vacant couch, listened to the eerie stillness that came with being alone, it was all too large just for you.

Your heart ached.

“It’s not fair,” you sobbed, voice breaking on the tailend of your sentence. “It’s not fair. It hurts too much, I can’t— I can’t do this.”

You were so, so tired.

Of feeling this way. Of waking up to his face and falling asleep with it etched into your eyelids. Of going to work with him over your shoulder. Of finding no escape even in the one place you thought you would be at ease. It was exhausting. You were exhausted.

Sebastian was quiet as you sat there, attempting in vain to wipe away the wetness spilling across your cheeks. The chill of night was starting to set in. You could feel its cold hands snaking up your bare arms. You sniffed and scrubbed at your eyes. Distantly, there was a steady shifting sound. Sand being displaced. The drips and drops of water falling into a puddle.

There was a touch against your knee—featherlight and hesitant.

You froze. And slowly, ever so slowly, you lowered your hands.

A gray-blue hand—large enough to cover the entirety of your knee—brushed lightly against the thin material of your pants. The pads of its wet fingers traced a small circle around it, mindful of the sharp claws attached to its ends. You felt as though you couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tear your gaze away from what you were seeing until the hand drew slightly away.

You looked up through wet lashes to see Sebastian—closer to the point where his shadow covered the entirety of your body. His head was bent towards you, angler’s lure falling into the space between your faces. The twilight that painted the sky in fragile light made his eyes glow softly, lowered as they were to take in your expression. Searching, maybe, though for what you were uncertain.

You swallowed, your gaze darting down to his curled hand, then back up at his unreadable face. A static encompassed your mind, leaving no room for coherent thought.

He seemed to be waiting for something. But when you only stared wide-eyed at him, he eventually sighed.

“It won’t be enough, I know,” he murmured, tail shifting somewhere behind him in the sand. “It will take the both of us. Here.”

He extended his arm before you—bending it in a way where his forearm oriented itself horizontally in front of you. He nodded down at it. “Go on.” It did not take a genius to figure out what he wanted you to do.

Could you do it? You didn’t know. You didn’t even know if you wanted to, for that matter. But one glance up at Sebastian’s face revealed an expectant sort of look to it. Nervous, you might say. Even grim. It did not make you feel any better. If anything, it made your muddled mix of emotions and thoughts even more messed up.

Time… Did you go through enough time?

You stared down at his arm—that looked so real, in this instance. Attached to a body that you could not even fathom in your dreams. You closed your eyes for a moment and could almost feel that phantom touch against your knee. The wetness that seeped into your pants from it. Reopening your eyes, you trailed your gaze from the clenched fist of his thick fingers, to the sharp jut of his clothed elbow. The space between you and it. A grim sort of feeling was beginning to take root in your stomach.

Always at a distance. Never crossing a line.

You took a deep breath.

And then you reached out your hand.

Your fingers sank into the wet material of his jacket. You inhaled sharply through your nose and found you could not pull yourself away for the life of you.

“…What?” you murmured, lightly brushing over his arm. Over and over and over again. Soggy and stiff and so utterly there. You were trapped in a free fall, plummeting down to the earth. “What? No. No, no, no no no.”

Your heartbeat was loud in your ears.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he asked, an unsteady frown overtaking his lips. His voice lowered, barely above a whisper. “I’m right here.”

“No,” was all you could choke out, fingers still feeling at his jacket. Slowly making their way to his elbow, then up his upper arm. Your lips trembled. “No. You—“

Your gaze shot up to his face and suddenly all you could see was him. Honeyed skin and blue eyes and rough scar across his nose. Looking at you so sadly, you almost felt your heart break all over again. An urge, so immense and paralyzing, swept its way throughout the entirety of your body and sank deeply into your very soul. It was all you could do to willingly follow it. You reached up towards his face, stomach twinging, and—

And he flinched away.

“No!” Sebastian suddenly snapped, teeth bared in a sharp snarl.

Your heart skipped a beat. Your entire body jerked back in surprise, your hands retreating towards your chest. He softened almost immediately. A pained grimace overtook his features, and he let out another long sigh.

“I just… Not yet,” he mumbled, shifting away from you so he could wrap his arms around his torso. His gaze lowered to the sand. “Not yet.”

Wide-eyed, you stared at him. You took him in—really took him in. Ear fins that flicked and twitched at the sides of his head. Gray-blue scales that were soaked in the dewy light of the rising moon. Massive tail supporting an equally massive torso. Three arms that tightened and gripped at the folds of his jacket.

This was him. This was really, really him.

And you could not comprehend it.

“I-I—” you stammered, pushing yourself up to your feet. You felt unsteady. Your chest hurt. It was like you couldn’t even think properly with how your head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. You clutched at your book as though it was your only lifeline. Maybe it was, at this moment. You took a shaky step back, sand crunching under your shoes. “I need… I need a moment.”

Just to yourself. Just to breathe and process.

The waves ebbed back and forth beyond the cove—the only sound for a few terse minutes.

“It’s okay,” Sebastian told you gently, though he couldn’t quite meet your eyes. His lips pressed together as his head turned away to look out at the sea. “I can wait.”

The next day passed by in a thick haze.

You’d gone to bed feeling completely and utterly spent. Your dreams were filled with muddled images of teal eyes and sharp teeth, this accompanying sense of dread so deep that you woke up still feeling its stifling presence. It felt like you constantly had something pressing down onto your chest. You pulled yourself out of bed and stood in front of the mirror in your bathroom, frowning at your reflection as you rubbed idly at your sternum.

Behind you, reflected in the glass, was your Sebastian. He didn’t say a word. Just stood there and smiled. You lowered your gaze down to your sink and felt your frown deepen.

You went through work feeling oddly detached from your body, your mind swirling constantly with thoughts of the previous evening. If you stared down at your hand—the one you’d used to caress his arm—you could almost feel the sensation of his jacket against your fingertips. The coldness. The wetness. The realness.

God, the realness. You had to cover your face with a hand so you could giggle hysterically into your palm. He was right. You felt stupid. But beyond that, it felt like you were still trapped in some kind of fog. Maybe you’d finally lost it after all this time.

But no, no, this was real. This was happening. You’d felt it yourself.

…Didn’t you want this? Didn’t you spend countless nights thinking about him? How much you missed him. How you would give anything for him to come back to you. The things you would do. The things you would say. It had all evaporated into thin air—was replaced with this hollow feeling that you could not decipher for the life of you.

You’d wanted him back, right?

Your Sebastian, with his— his…

Something in your stomach writhed endlessly.

“Hellooo? You still there?” a voice asked in your ear.

You blinked back to awareness, your phone clutched in your hand. The breakroom of your workplace was empty apart from you sitting at its little table. You cleared your throat. “Yeah, sorry. Zoned out a bit. What were you saying?”

There was a small pause. Then, “Are you… okay?” Isidora asked hesitantly. You could practically hear the frown in her voice. “It’s just… You seem out of it.”

You rubbed a hand across your face. Truthfully, no, but you weren’t about to tell her that. “I’m fine. Work’s just been… work. You know how it is.”

She made a small noise in understanding. “Oh boy, yeah I get it. Just last week I had a 10-hour shift. I swear, some of my coworkers are so incompetent.” She huffed, then her voice softened. “Well, if you’re sure you’re okay, I won’t press you about it. Just make sure you’re getting enough sleep, yeah?”

You blew a raspberry at her, your voice taking on a slightly teasing lilt. “What are you, my mom? I’ll be fine.” You paused for a moment, then added, “Speaking of, how’s Maria?”

“She’s fine. Recently took up knitting actually,” Isidora told you. “I think she’s working on a blanket right now. She tried beanies first, but they didn’t turn out all too well.” She snickered.

“Never thought I’d see the day where she’d take up knitting,” you mused.

“I know right? She used to say she’d never get into any ‘old lady hobbies’ and now look at her!”

“She’s not working full-time anymore, right? She’s probably bored.”

“Oh for sure, especially with Lucas not home to cause trouble.”

“Yeah? When’s his spring break?” you asked, glancing over to the wall in the breakroom that had a small calendar hung up on it. It was nearing March.

“Not until next month. We still have some peace and quiet. A little too much, if you ask me.” She sighed, then her voice brightened. “Oh! Actually, Mama and I started going through some old albums the other day. Hang on, there were some pics I wanted to send you...”

You hummed. “She did make a hobby out of album making a while ago, didn’t she?” You thought back to that album of family photos Sebastian kept in his desk—that you ultimately ended up returning. You frowned to yourself.

“Yeah, holy shit you should’ve seen the number of boxes we sorted through,” Isidora said, her voice slightly fainter like she’d removed her phone from her ear. There were a few tapping sounds. “It was nice seeing all our baby pictures. I almost forgot Lucas used to look so cute when he was a toddler.”

You snorted, then removed your phone from your ear when it gave a little buzz of an incoming message. You clicked on the notification banner from Isidora.

Instantly, you could feel the smile fade from your lips.

The first picture was of Sebastian—chubby-faced and missing one of his front teeth as he grinned up at the camera. He was kneeling on a wooden floor as he petted the back of a fluffy, brown cat. There was a bandaid across the bridge of his nose where you knew a rough scar would form, but it didn’t obscure the way his eyes crinkled in delight.

(Teal eyes. Fingers like knives.)

The second picture was of you, Sebastian, and his siblings right before you went out Trick or Treating one year. You remembered this. Isidora spent so long trying to help Lucas with his Bumblebee costume—it came with so many different parts. You could barely see the peek of Lucas’ blue eyes past the yellow helmet. Isidora herself dressed up as the girl from The Ring, her long, black hair framing her face in shadows as she stared monotonously forward.

Your gaze lingered on Sebastian, his teeth bared at the camera to show off the two fangs he bought for cheap at a store. Fake blood ran down his chin from the corners of his mouth. His arm was wrapped around your shoulder, where you were posing like you were about to bite into his neck. Both of you had black makeup smudged around your eyes and long, flowing capes that you remembered had been a pain to deal with as they dragged along the ground outside.

(Teal eyes. Fingers like knives. Body covered in scales.)

The last picture—

You felt your mouth turn dry like cotton had just been forced into your throat.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.

The last picture was of you and him. Dancing in the middle of a small wedding hall. The photographer had caught you mid-laugh. What Sebastian had told you, you didn’t remember now. But you lingered on the way he smiled down at you, cheek dimpling slightly. The warmth of his gaze. The familiar crinkle of his eyes. The way your hands were intertwined tightly together, gold bands glinting on each of your fingers.

(Teal eyes. Fingers like knives. Body covered in scales. Pungent smell of—)

All of them were taken in a way where it was clear they were pictures of the pictures already printed out in their designated albums. God, you had no idea Maria had kept some of these. You could feel a cold sort of feeling spreading throughout your body, numbing everything it came in touch with.

There was a reason why you didn’t keep the pictures you’d had back at your apartment.

And that reason was currently swimming around in the depths of the ocean instead of the bottom of a casket like you’d originally thought.

“I thought you’d want to see them, it’s been so long since”—Isidora’s voice broke off and she cleared her throat—“well, y’know.”

You didn’t even know what to say. “I— yeah.” You blinked, once, then twice. Forcing back the stinging you felt at the corners of your eyes. “Thanks.”

He’s alive, you wanted to tell her. He’s alive he’s alive he’s alive and he’s here and he’s so much different than you or I could have ever possibly imagined.

But… you couldn’t say all that. Not when everything was still so disconcerting for you. Not when you were still struggling to come to terms with it yourself. Not when you knew she would never believe you.

“We still have some more albums to go through. I’ll send you more pictures if I come across them!” Isidora said eagerly. “It’s just… nice to have them, y’know?”

“Yeah,” you forced out, even as it felt like someone had grabbed a fistful of your insides and ruthlessly twisted. “It… It really is.”

That same evening you found yourself pacing relentlessly in your living room.

You could see Sebastian from the corner of your eye as he sat on your couch, his head moving side to side as he followed your movements.

“You’re gonna wear a hole in the carpet at that rate,” he told you, idly tugging at the cartilage piercing on his upper ear. “Relax.”

You ignored him.

Glancing out the front window, you could see the sun’s last vestiges of light disappear under the horizon, making way for a cool, dark night. You couldn’t see a wink of moonlight anywhere. Either a cloud was blocking it or it was a new moon, you weren’t sure. It didn’t matter though. Your insides felt like you’d swallowed a jar of jittering bees.

You were procrastinating, you knew. But part of you reasoned it was better to go under the cover of an almost vantablack night, the stars your only light. Your gaze darted to Sebastian, one of his feet jiggling slightly from where it was crossed over his knee. You worried your bottom lip between your teeth and turned back to stare out at the black, rolling sea.

Every time you closed your eyes you could see his face—inhuman and unfamiliar.

Did you want him back like this?

Something had happened to him. Something bad. The way he drew away from you was telling—the way he couldn’t quite look you in the eye. You wanted to ask him what happened, how he ended up like… like that. But you were scared of what his response would be.

All this time, he had been alive, somewhere, and you were none the wiser. You were none the wiser. It was as heartbreaking as it was utterly devastating.

You sighed and scrubbed your hands along your face. This wasn’t about you. This was about him—likely waiting for you by the shore. It was time to get a move on.

You patted yourself down and did a final sweep of your living room to make sure you’d packed everything neatly away. Then, you slipped out the front door, the moon finally making its presence known as the clouds parted overhead. Slowly, you made your way to the cove, carefully picking down a few steep rocks until your shoes came into contact with sand. There was a slight chill to the air as you trudged over to your usual spot and stood there, staring out at the sea.

You did not need to wait long.

“You’re here later than normal,” a smooth voice called out pointedly once his head broke through the waves. He swam closer leisurely—the teal glow of his eyes bouncing off the water in front of him—then lounged on his stomach a short distance away. Eyes fell into a half-lidded look. “Was beginning to think you weren’t gonna show up.”

You shifted on your feet, looking away from him to stare at the ground. “No I… I was just waiting for it to get darker.”

Sebastian hummed like he didn’t quite believe you. “Right. Well?” He seemed to brace himself. “I’m sure you have… questions.”

You did. You really, really did—brimming as they were on the tip of your tongue. But you swallowed them down, just for a moment.

“I do,” you told him, “but…” You hesitated.

He picked up on it right away, drawling out a “Buuut?”

You fidgeted with your fingers, rotating your ring around. “Do you… want to come in? First?”

There was a pregnant pause. You grimaced to yourself.

“You mean…?” His head flicked up towards the top of the cove, where your cottage stood idly waiting. The lights were still on inside, making the windows glow a warm, welcoming orange.

You nodded, then flapped your hands around nervously when his expression flattened out—unreadable. “Ah, I mean— I just thought it might be better? Than being out here, you know? But— But if you don’t wanna, we can stay outside, I don’t mi—“

He cut across your fumbling words. “Yeah, we can go. I just…” He trailed off, avoiding your gaze. “Didn’t expect you to offer, really.”

There was… honestly a lot to unpack there. But you could do that later.

“Alright, c’mon.” You lingered in place for a moment, then turned on your heel to make your way back over to the edge of the cove. You glanced over your shoulder when there was the sound of rushing water—thousands of droplets trailing down Sebastian’s torso as he lifted himself up from the tide and slid his way towards you.

It was… oddly captivating, watching him move. The anterior side of his body did not have scales like you’d assumed—there were scutes, instead, that helped him move easily across the sand. The thick muscles of his tail undulated side to side, displacing sand to leave a trail. You watched as the grains were pushed out of the way. The water that fell from his body and darkened the ground.

Shaking your head slightly, you turned to the rocks to begin your steady ascent.

The quiet of the climb was interrupted only by the occasional sound of waves forming and collapsing in the distance. You swept your gaze around the bit of the shore and dock you could see just in case there was anyone wandering about for a late night stroll. Luckily there wasn’t, but even if there was, you didn’t think they would be able to make out anything in the dark.

If you strained your ears hard enough, you could hear the steady slithering of Sebastian’s body as he followed somewhere behind you. It made the hairs on your arms stand up straight, the piercing feeling of being watched weighing heavily on your form. You peeked at him from time to time, watching the way he slipped easily over rock and grass. His long, thick tail extended far behind him and blended into the navy-blue shadows.

You… didn’t have much to say. Neither did he, apparently. But that was okay.

You shuffled up the last bit of the climb and rolled your shoulders once your feet found flat earth. Grass tickled at the exposed parts of your ankles as you tread over to your cottage to wait by the door. You couldn’t rid yourself of the prickling along your body.

He took his time to meet you there. You had a feeling that he could be much faster if he wanted.

He came to a stop by your side, his eyes slightly squinted as his tail pushed himself up much higher over you. And the two of you stood there for a moment. You, looking up at him. Him, looking down at you.

Neither of you said a word. Waiting for the other, you realized.

You cleared your throat, eyeing his taller—wider—form, then the front door’s frame. You… believed he would fit. Probably. You set your hand on the doorknob.

“Well,” you said in what you hoped was a casual manner, cracking the door open so that the inside light could spill forth across the shadowed ground. “Here’s home.”

You stepped inside, your body cutting through the light to cast a long shadow behind you. Sebastian hummed, and you looked at him to see he was lingering just out of reach of the light. Your head tilted at him.

“Mind turning the lights off?” he asked, grimacing slightly once the words left his mouth.

Oh. You paused and turned his request over in your head. You supposed you never did see him in broad daylight—it was always during the evening, when the sun had already turned in for the night.

You nodded and shucked your shoes off to the side before walking over to the wall that had your living room light switch on it. You flipped it off, darkness immediately dousing everything within its vicinity. You blinked, waiting for your eyesight to adjust. Moonlight through your open-curtained windows allowed you to just barely make out Sebastian’s form as he slowly moved his head and torso through the doorway. His teal eyes pierced through the shadows to land on you.

He shifted a little. “Wanna see a cool trick?”

“...Sure?” Confusion lined your voice.

The shadow of one of his arms reached up to pull on something and before you knew it, a warm, golden glow washed gently along the walls and floor of your cottage. You squinted slightly at the angler’s lure that curved down from the top of his head, breathtakingly luminescent. Hypnotizing, almost. Your stomach churned.

“S’better on my eyes than regular bulbs,” he explained in your silence, shifting further into the living room. “Easier to handle than the artificial light or whatever. Though darkness is, mh, ideal.”

Ah. “That makes sense.” You watched as his head turned this way and that while he took everything in. Your couch. Your sparse decorations. The small coffee table with books stacked atop it. The fluffy carpet on the floor. It made you feel awfully self-conscious. You rubbed your upper arm.

Exhaling lightly, you stepped back towards the front door once the last bit of his tail slipped inside and closed it gently. And once you turned around, you spent a moment to just… take everything in.

It felt like there wasn’t enough space to hold all of him, curled up as he was in your living room. His long, serpentine tail wrapped around your couch so that the wide flukes at its end rested heavily near your coffee table. And even then, he was still coiled in a way where his tail supported him up, his head nearly brushing the wood of your ceiling where he was tucked in a corner of the room.

A little too large. A little too out of place.

How in the world were you supposed to deal with this? How in the world was any of this real? You were still having difficulty wrapping your head around it.

Sebastian hummed, two of his hands clasping at each other while the third reached out to run its fingers across one of the cushions on your couch. “Cozy.” His gaze landed on you. “How long have you been out here for?”

You shrugged as you shuffled closer, stopping right by the curve of his tail. You stared vacantly down at it. “A while,” you told him. “After everything happened.”

“Not a fan of the city anymore, hm?”

You slowly shook your head. “No. It was just… too much.”

He nodded, a motion that made his lure bob slightly in place. The reach of it caused the room to be partially bathed in both light and shadow that shifted with even the smallest of movements. But you could still see the sopping wetness of his jacket. The way his waterlogged scarf hung heavily from around his neck, and his hair was plastered to the sides of his face. You frowned.

“Do you want a change of clothes or something?” you asked him, the words leaving your mouth before you could really process them. Your gaze trailed along his tail. Even the straps attached to it were still wet. That couldn’t be comfortable for him. Right? “Maybe a towel?”

He waved you off lazily with his third arm. You followed the gesture with your eyes, latched onto the bandages wrapped around his forearm. Those were wet as well. “Nah. I’m fine. Don’t you worry your sweet little head about me.”

Your frown deepened. It felt like all you could do was worry, now.

You fixed him with a stare. “Sebastian, you’re sopping wet. At least dry off. Or let me toss your clothes into the wash.” You pondered it for a moment. “Actually that might be better.” You’d only ever seen him in those clothes, after all—even if most of the time you’d thought he was well, not real.

He only grinned mischievously down at you, mouth full of sharp teeth that made something in your stomach lurch. “Already trying to get me out of my clothes?” he purred, eyes lowering into low crescents. “You rascal. Take a guy out to dinner first.”

You squinted at him. There was an air of forcefulness to his words that you were only just able to pick up on. Bravado. A facade. He was deflecting. And you were not about to be fooled by it.

“You’re making my floor wet,” you said flatly. His smile twitched slightly at the corners. “I’ll go see what I have. Though I don’t think there’s anything that’ll fit you, really.” You eyed his upper torso. “I think I have a large blanket, that might work.”

“I really must decline,” he said cooly, but you were already gone—stepping around his tail to head over to your bedroom. He called out your name in exasperation. “Are you listening to me? I said I’m fine.”

“Right, right,” you replied idly, opening your bedroom door so you could shuffle over to your closet in the dark. There were various linens stacked up on a shelf, and you pulled out a towel and a decently-sized blanket that you used occasionally when it was chillier. This would have to do. The thought saddened you.

Bundling them up in your arms, you shut the door with your heel and turned to make your way back to the living room.

Sebastian loomed in the doorway, the light from his lure gently lighting up the corners of your room. One of his hands braced against the top of the frame as he peered at you. “Awfully persistent, aren’t you?”

You rolled your eyes. “Come now,” you said as you approached him. He moved out of the way so you could step through the frame and look up at him. “Surely you don’t want to keep those on?” You held up the towel. “Here.”

“I assure you, I am more than a little used to some wet clothes,” he drawled as he reached out to carefully take it from your grasp. In his hold, it looked much smaller. He clutched it in a fist.

“Well, you don’t have to be”—you jabbed a thumb over your shoulder in the general direction of where your washer and dryer were tucked away—“It wouldn’t take too lon—”

He growled—a sound that made your hairs stand straight up on your nape. The room darkened fractionally. “I said no.” Eyes narrowing, he set you with a firm look. “You’ll quit asking if you know what’s good for you.”

There was a moment where you just watched him. Observed him, your eyes flicking over his face. The hair partially shielding his eyes. The way his lips pressed together in a thin line. This was not a battle you would win. And that was okay. Baby steps.

You took a deep breath. And then you exhaled it all out.

“Okay, okay,” you relented softly, averting your gaze to walk over to your couch. You dumped the blanket over it, then sat down wearily. “You win, for now. I don’t suppose you happen to have anything else to wear?” It was futile to ask, but you had to anyway.

“This was what I was given,” he said dryly, shifting on his tail so that he sat coiled upon it somewhere in front of you. He fidgeted with the towel. “You learn to make do.”

And wasn’t that a sobering thought.

You bit at your bottom lip, your fingers wringing together as you watched him use the towel to carefully dry his hair. You burned and burned with the number of questions that lingered bitterly on your tongue. You swallowed, and one of his ear fins twitched slightly.

Quietly, you asked, “What… happened?”

He stilled, staring down at the towel gripped between his fingers. And after what felt like a long, long time, he sighed.

“Better get comfortable,” he mumbled wearily and closed his eyes for a brief moment. “It’s a long story.”

You were woefully unprepared for a single thing that left his mouth.

A fake execution report. An experiment to give humans gills. Being trapped in an underwater facility for years. It all sounded like something straight out of fiction. You were beyond stupefied. In hindsight, thinking he was a hallucination wasn’t even the worst of it all, but it certainly didn’t make it easier to get rid of your own struggles with him actually being here right now. Part of you wondered if he was lying to you to avoid talking about something unfathomably worse—if such a thing even existed.

But he wasn’t. You saw it in the way his jaw tensed from time to time. The way he flexed his fingers and his tone changed into something much cooler. And even if what he was saying didn’t sound possible… it made sense. It made sense.

You didn’t know what to do with all of it. Didn’t know how to react, really. There was this gnawing pit in your chest that worsened with every word that left his mouth. You… couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had gone through. And even then, there were things he certainly wasn’t telling you. Call it intuition but… you could sense it. He didn’t tell you everything. And you were not sure how to feel about that. Still…

All this time… All this time.

And you’d been none the wiser.

“So how did you… escape?” you asked as you rubbed your fingers into your temples to stave off a growing headache.

Sebastian grinned, a sharp thing that showed the dark gums of his teeth. “They let their guard down.” The grin turned into more of a baring of teeth. “I stole a keycard, caused a sitewide lockdown. Liaised with one of Urbanshade’s competitors and they got me out in exchange for selling them data.”

You blinked at him. There it was again, that feeling that he was purposely leaving out details. You didn’t call him out on it. “And then you came… here?”

He made a noise, his shoulders shrugging. “Sure.”

“How did you even find—?”

He cut you off with a snort. “The power of corporations, babe. It was easy for them to find your location. Made my life easier when it turned out you were living on the coast now, too.”

You weren’t even going to deliberate that too deeply. “They just let you come here?” you asked dubiously.

“Mmmmyep.” He scratched slightly at the side of his face. “Don’t be mistaken, I’m still in contact with them. For ah, other business purposes.”

“Other business purposes,” you repeated warily.

Sebastian gave you a close-mouthed smile, his eyes crinkling shut. “Don’t you worry about it.”

Right, this again. It felt like you’d just aged fifty years in one sitting. You sighed and leaned back into the couch, your arms crossing over your chest. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you wrestled internally with all that you had learned. A weight had been placed upon your shoulders. But you knew it was nothing compared to the one he carried on his own. You frowned, pinching at the bridge of your nose.

You felt sick. So, utterly, sick.

Sebastian was quiet now that he’d said his piece. He wrung the towel still in his hands together as he glanced around your cottage again. Eyes jumping from one thing to the other, though you had no idea what he was searching for specifically. Eventually, though, he spoke once more.

“...You never remarried.” It was said more as a statement than a question, like he knew even before saying it. You supposed if he’d been watching you all this time, it would have become apparent that you lived by yourself. You watched him carefully.

“No,” you replied simply. You showed him the ring still on your finger, the gold glinting up at him. “See?”

His gaze flicked down to look at your hand. His head tilted slightly, the light on his lure brightening minutely.

“Aww,” he cooed, “I knew you were still madly in love with me.”

You gave him a look—stricken as you were by his words. “Of course,” you said quietly, looking off to the side. “Always.”

He seemed to sober up at your words. He cleared his throat and looked away. But you still continued to gaze at him, your eyes flicking down to his third arm where you could see that glint of a band around his fourth finger. You hesitated, then steeled yourself for what you were about to ask of him.

“Sebastian,” you murmured. His ear fin flicked, but he didn’t meet your gaze. “Give me your hand.” Then, after a pause, you added, “Please.”

You think the request caught him off guard, just a little. He opened his mouth, but before a single word could escape, he glanced at your face and closed it abruptly. You wondered what he saw there. You waited as he seemed to mull your request over in his head. Then, he shifted closer to the couch—his larger body looming over your own and painting you in gentle, soothing light.

You reached out a hand, patient. He eyed it, then slowly, so slowly, he extended one of his arms.

You shook your head. “No, not that one.” You pointed to his third arm. “That one.”

He seemed taken aback. “You…” he trailed off, then shook his head with a sigh. “Alright.”

He lifted his arm up and reached towards you. Leaning forward, you met him halfway. But before you could touch him, you flicked your gaze up to his face. He watched you. Quiet. Intent. Not a single breath being taken between the two of you.

Your hands grasped at his own. Real, real, real, real. It was… strange. Different. You couldn’t help the way your insides writhed and writhed and writhed. Inhuman. Unfamiliar. His hand, even one that was starkly smaller than his other two, was so much larger than yours, now. Thicker. Colder. Harder. It felt like he had a shell of some sort encasing his fingers. And the tips of them were sharp like the end of a blade—carefully curled away from you as they were. You held onto one of his fingers and pondered upon the distinctness. Lost yourself in the feeling. His finger twitched under your grip.

(“Hey.” Sebastian nudged you with his foot, forcing you to tear your gaze away from your notes to raise an eyebrow at him. He was sitting on the other side of the couch, his back pressed against its arm. “Let me see your hand for a sec?”

“What for?” you asked warily, yet still extended your hand out to him. He gave you a small grin, then took your palm with a contemplative hum.

His free hand went up to his chin in thought as he twisted your own this way and that. “Ah. Just as I thought.”

“What?” you pressed him, not liking the glint in his blue eyes.

“You’re missing something,” he told you. “Something so important that I fear you might die if you don’t get it soon. Shit’s fatal, you know.”

You lowered your eyelids at him, not believing him for a second. “And that is?”

Sebastian hummed, nodding slightly to himself, before he laced your fingers together. Your palms pressed against one another, the sensation of warm skin encompassing your own. “There. You’re cured. You're welcome, by the way.”

You puffed out a laugh and tried to fruitlessly yank your hand away. His grip tightened. “Sebastian, how are we going to get any work done like this, huh?”

“Not my problem. I can work just fine with one hand.” He wiggled the fingers of his free hand at you, the black polish on his nails slightly chipped at the tips.

You rolled your eyes and stuck your tongue out at him. “Your hand’s all sweaty.”

“Rude. My hands aren’t sweaty, yours are.”

You gave him the stink eye. “No you.”

He mirrored your expression back at you. “Alright, get over here you little—” With a swift yank, he tugged you over to him. Yelping, you felt yourself get dragged across the couch until you found yourself trapped within his arms. They tightened around your body, and for extra measure, you felt one of his legs hook around the back of your own.

You gave a halfhearted wiggle, your cheek pressed against his chest. “This doesn’t help either of our productivities.” Your voice was muffled a bit. If you inhaled even just a little bit, you could smell his musk covered by the sweet scent of cinnamon. “You stink.”

He tightened his hold. You could feel his head lower to rest atop your own. “Think about what you’ve done and maybe I’ll let you go,” he murmured into your ear. You could practically hear the devious grin in his voice.

You only sighed in resignation and hid your smile in his shirt.)

You shook your head slightly, pushing down the ugly feelings crawling up your throat. Focus on the here and now. Peering closely at his fourth finger, you observed the gold band.

“That’s—a big ring,” you said slowly, squinting at it. There was no way that was the same one you both had exchanged at your wedding. It was much bigger, for one. And simpler. “What happened to the one I gave you?”

“Broke,” he replied with a forced casualness that you could smell from a mile away. His tail shifted behind him.

You raised an eyebrow. “Broke?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Y’know, when the whole”—he gestured to his body loosely with a hand, making it seem like it wasn’t as big of a deal—“happened.”

“I see.” You cocked your head, running your thumb over the large ring. Once, then twice, then thrice. “So you found a new one?”

He grumbled something low under his breath. You glanced up at him to find him pressing the towel into the lower part of his face, not quite able to look at you anymore. “Yeah,” he begrudgingly admitted. There was a warmth in your stomach, somewhere, fed by the rosiness that you could see on his cheeks. You willed the feeling to chase away all the others that simmered under your skin.

You gave him a small, teasing smile. “Hmm. I knew you were still madly in love with me.”

He sniffed and tugged his hand away from your grip—incensed now that you threw his own words back at him. You let him go willingly, your smile turning into a grin. Your hands tingled in the aftermath of holding his own. “Shuddup, weirdo.”

You chuckled and spent a quiet, peaceful moment just sitting together in your cottage. Listening to the vague ticking of the clock that rested somewhere on a wall. You breathed in, then out, willing your mind to cease its incessant buzzing.

“...What now?” you quietly asked, your question lingering in the finite space of your living room.

Sebastian only watched you, his eyes a gentle glow. “I don’t know.”

You exhaled through your nose and glanced outside at the darkened sky. You could feel a specific kind of fatigue itching at your eyes. It was late, and the events of this evening had been so utterly exhausting. Still were, honestly. Rubbing a hand down your face, you stood up and stretched out your arms.

“It’s getting late,” you said, rolling your shoulders. “I need to sleep, I have work in the morning.”

He blinked, seeming to startle out of thought, and flicked his eyes over your face. His lips pursed. “Right, yeah,” he grumbled, shifting as he straightened up and turned towards your front door. “I’ll get outta your hair then—”

Instantly, your heart leapt up in your chest. You stopped him with a gentle touch on his arm. He jerked slightly before he turned to give you a questioning look. Pulling away, you held your hands in front of your sternum. “You’re leaving?” You did not want to admit to the vulnerability that coated your voice.

“...Duh?” He hesitated. “Don’t you… want me to?”

“Not at all,” you told him, stepping back to give him some space. “You can stay.” Then, timidly, you added, “For as long as you want.” You… thought it was a given that he could.

Sebastian stared. He stared and he stared and he stared until finally he slouched forward and released a long, long breath. “...Thanks.” One of his hands scrubbed at his face. He looked so tired. Your eyebrows furrowed.

“Make yourself comfortable.” You gestured at the living room, the blanket still piled upon your couch. “I’ll grab you a pillow, one sec.” You took a step back towards your room, then paused and turned back around. “Oh, I can take the towel too.”

He didn’t seem much for conversation anymore. He only nodded and handed back the towel to you, damp as it was from mopping up the water from his body. You could feel his eyes on you as you scurried back into your bedroom to sling the towel into your laundry hamper and grab an extra pillow from your bed.

“Here you are,” you said as you reentered the living room and tossed the pillow in his direction. You hoped it didn’t have any of your hair on it. He grabbed it out of the air with one hand, something contemplative to his gaze. “Help yourself to anything in the kitchen if you’re hungry. I think I have leftovers.” You shifted, pointing your thumb behind you at your bedroom. Was this okay? “I’ll… just be in there if you need me.”

And there it was again. That look on his face like he was battling something mentally. Like there was something just barely on the tip of his tongue that he wanted to say. He held onto himself, hands gripping at the folds of his jacket. Gazing at you so— so….

You hesitated, wondering if this was the right thing to do. You both were not the same as you’d been all those years ago. It made the air thick with something that went unacknowledged.

You broke the silence with a gentle clear of your throat. Baby steps, you reminded yourself. “Well… good night.” “...Good night,” he whispered, still watching you with this look in his eyes as you stepped into your room and finally closed your bedroom door with a quiet click.

part three

#icb i let this fic beat me up in an alleyway like this #shay scribbles daydreams #sebastian solace x reader #sebastian solace x you #pressure x reader #roblox pressure x reader #<- still takes me out #who i see au #if u guys saw that lactose intolerant fact ignore it i was wrong LMFAOO

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