#my argument for townseb is: i like that it sounds like townsend. that's it

[waveridden]

23 for sebmike also id like to pitch telesend as a ship name

listen i am happy with whatever ship name people want but it breaks my heart that we can’t finagle it so the ship name is “microphone” because neither of them have r’s in their name. maybe that’s mike/derrick/seb. anyways

23. darting shadows in the corner of your eyes

At first he thinks that “in the shadows” is literal.

It’s wishful thinking, of course. Instability is a mark for death, and blooddrain isn’t a drain. There’s no earthly way that Mike is actually in the shadows at the edges of the stadium. He’s not actually there.

But Sebastian looks for him anyways, a habit that takes weeks on end to break. Every single motion, every figure whose face he can’t quite make out is Mike. It’s a comforting thought until he thinks about it too long and then it’s sobering, haunting to consider Mike trapped just out of sight.

He gets over it. It takes time but he gets over it. He stops seeing Mike at games, at practices, at home. It’s just him. It gets easier to go to cookouts, to spend time with other people again. He gets happier. It gets better.

And then one day at a game something moves in the corner of his eye, something deliberate, something he recognizes, and he turns before he can think twice about it, mouth already opening, the shape of Mike’s name on his lips.

When Jaylen hits him with a pitch, he doesn’t see it coming. He supposes that’s better than the alternative.