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piratewithvigor · 1 year ago

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Regal The Professional: Chapter 4

It's not professional to go on a killing spree in the middle of the day. Leon The Professional AU but make it found family

AO3

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

There’s an electricity in the air right before a bust. A sharp little zinging from scalp to toes, a jitter of adrenaline from spine to fingertips. It’s a readiness, a focus. The moments of normalcy that are being counted down. They’re pleasant, but they’re made so much better with a little E in the system.

Thankfully, Jericho never goes without, just in case.

The dish used to be an antique compact mirror, but with the tray altered slightly, it fits the tablets easily, looks classy and slips right into his inside pocket without being bulky or rattly.

“I love these… calm little moments before the storm,” he comments to Matt behind him. “It reminds me of Aerosmith. Can you hear it? It’s the vibrations between metal and flesh, between man and machine. Do you like Aerosmith?”

Matt cocks the rifle in his hands, looking more towards the other men lined along the hallway, prepped for the breach. There’s five of them in total, all laser-focused on the door Jericho’s stopped in front of. “Couldn’t really say. Haven’t listened to them much recently.”

“That’s alright, I’ll play you one of my favorites.” The doorknob is blown off the door almost as fast as Jericho took the rifle from Matt.

There’s a lot he could ruin the gunshots with. Could make a joke, could start singing like a demented Malcolm McDowell wannabe, but neither really feels right. Aerosmith isn’t just Steven Tyler, after all. He can enjoy the little details that get muddled from all the screeching. Little details like how nice the sunglasses belonging to the body in the bubble bath are when they fall to the tile below. The doublebass of the blast hitting waiter and the body hitting floor. Mm, nice and quick.

But it’s still only two. The song can’t be over just yet. Especially when Beretta has to be skulking around. He’s only part of today’s concert. There’s so much more to be played.

For instance, he’s stolen about 20 grand of coke, give or take a sniff. Now it’s either hanging around, or the money that he got for selling it is. He’s not the kind of man who’s smart enough to put it in a bank or invest it, or probably even have someone else hold it. If he even has friends who would be willing to do such a thing.

Something Aerosmith did that they really should do more often is have more songs be recorded in stereo. A separate treat for each ear. Sounds just like how when he walks through the kitchen and slides everything from the countertops to the floor, he gets to enjoy the plates and food crashing on one side and the silverware on the other. A treat for each ear. Working in perfect harmony to create the song playing deep in the back of his brain. It’s exciting, but no opening, or even a bridge can compare to the chorus, to the man of the hour, Mr Trent Beretta, flattening himself against the back wall of the living room, barely even looking like he’s trying to defend himself.

“We said noon, Beretta,” he chuckles, joining him and tapping his watch. “And you don’t look like Axl Rose to me, so that means you’re late.”

Trent doesn’t make a move. Or even seems like he’s about to defend himself vocally. Maybe he’s just confused.

“You don’t like Guns N Roses, do you? Big shame. I hear screams like that and… mmm, they get my juices flowing. And Slash’s guitar work? Very powerful. But I have to admit, after their debut, now that they’re big rock stars… they’ve gotten fucking boring. That’s why I stopped.”

He still doesn’t get it. What doesn’t he get? The metaphor? It’s a good one. Clear as day. You don’t play when it’s boring. How does the line go? ‘Don’t bore us; get to the chorus’. He can play the most exciting part if that’s what Beretta wants.

“Toss the rest of the apartment,” he orders Matt. It’s not a big place, after all, and they’ve got a big enough team here. They’ll be in and out before the lunch rush is over. “You and Ang take the bedrooms, Sammy takes the kitchen and Hager takes the hallway, make sure no one comes in or out.” He doesn’t say he’ll keep watch over Beretta and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, but he doesn’t have to. Speaking is a good silence ruined, after all.

Besides being an excellent way to carry milk home, Regal’s had his case stocked to the brim for years with everything he could possibly need in an event like this. The shots have been going off for a while now and by his count, there has to be at least two deaths. No one is screaming like he’d heard for a few moments, so that must mean everyone who could scream can’t anymore.

He’s hoping that isn’t the case. That maybe the world isn’t quite so cruel as to shoot down the innocent with shotguns in their own homes. It is, of course, has been since guns were invented, but maybe not today. Maybe not in the apartment next door where there should be two kids who are safe and sound. He hadn’t seen the boy leave with his sister (he was pretty sure the younger sibling was a sister), but there was always a chance she was alright.

Wheeler’s got twenty whole dollars for groceries today. With the right budgeting, it’ll last for a week, maybe even a little longer if there’s a good sale going on. But five will still go to milk for the man down the hall. Wheeler owes him, after all. There’s a lot of things that guy’s seen that he probably could have gotten Wheeler in a lot of trouble for, but he’s never said a word. Never ratted him out and even gave him a handkerchief. There’s not a lot of really nice people in the building, but he’s a really nice one. He’s kind without being asked. A lot of people could stand to learn a lot of things from him about how to be good.

“You must be a fan of the older stuff. Like the Stones? Mm, I love the Stones. They’ve got a new CD coming out soon, you know? First one in a few years, very exciting. But for work like this, they’re a little… well, a little bit light. Days like today, I need someone a little heavier. But if you like the Stones, check out Geordie; they’re pretty good too.”

People underestimate Geordie, after all, if they’ve ever even heard of them. Hard for a band to live on when the lead singer goes and joins another band infinitely more popular. It’s a shame. Having everything you’ve ever worked on, your whole legacy wiped clean save for a few memories just because someone near and dear to you decided to make a decision for all of you.

The irony of Jericho thinking so as he stands in a pool of the waiter’s blood is not lost on him. If he cared, he may wonder who exactly the waiter is to Beretta. Husband? Lover? Occasional squeeze? He must have some point of being here. Whoever he is, Jericho hopes the coke was worth more. Cause whoever this person was is now pretty much just a sack of skin holding a few bones and some meat. Like an overdressed butcher’s bag.

There’s lot of little details around the room that show just how much Beretta chose to throw away. Little fingerprints on the wall around waist-high mean there’s a kid skulking around they’ll have to find later. Some clothes strewn around that look like they may belong to an older kid. Great, like they needed that kind of hassle. This sorry fuck had to go and reproduce just to make his life all the more difficult.

Jericho’s interrupted in his laments by something that rips through the sleeve of his coat and then his flesh. The boom of the shotgun seems to come a split second later. That fucking–

There’s a second boom and the too-quick popping of a semi along with someone running and just about everyone in the apartment scrambling for cover. Only one of his men came in here with something like that, so it doesn’t take a genius. Beretta triggered a fucking firefight and none of his guys were actually prepared for one mentally. He got two off from what Jericho heard and Hager, that dipshit, emptied his entire magazine through the thin walls of this crap shack.

No one says a word or even really breathes until Beretta tries to scurry out by way of the kitchen, as if that quick-thinking evasive maneuver will do him any good. He got the man in charge of hunting through it, after all. Probably the one he’d been aiming for in the first place. Just like Sammy to leave a blind spot open. Beretta’s making the same mistake, with his back to Jericho as he heads for the door. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the gene pool of future generations, Jericho didn’t take a shot with his own gun today. He’s got a full clip on the ready to nail him between the shoulderblades, just shy of his spine.

But he’s still moving. He’s still crawling for the door through his own blood– He has the audacity to rip a hole through Jericho’s jacket and pretend he’ll live to tell?

“Oh, goddammit!”

Matt’s asking if he’s okay from wherever he took cover, but he just won’t be loud enough. There’s nothing louder than his own pulse right now. It’s like John Bonham is inside his fucking skull and traded his Ludwigs for Jericho’s eardrums.

He follows Beretta down the hall, getting a shot into each of the vital organs. Through a kidney, through the liver, through an intestine, into a lung and lodges one in his heart when the clip clicks to signal its had enough. Beretta isn’t moving anymore either, so maybe it is enough.

“Chris, what th’ hell are you doing?” Matt whirls him around by his good arm. “He’s dead.”

“He ruined my jacket. Tore a hole right through,” Jericho points out like it makes all the difference in the world.

“Yeah, I know, but he’s dead. He’s just a piece of meat now, forget about it. Calm down”

Truly said like a man who’s never had to track down someone willing to sew functional lightbulbs into the lining of a good quality leather coat without making it too bulky or heavy.

“I’m calm.” It’s what he wants to hear, after all.

The frozen vegetable medley is actually on sale this week. For once, it means that Kris won’t have to deal with just one crappy vegetable and can take which ones she likes from the bag. It’s not the greatest treat in the world, but she’s too skinny already and Wheeler’s hoping that maybe she won’t be taken away by CPS if she looks like she actually eats at home. Besides, with the cheez whiz he got too, she won’t be able to tell she’s eating broccoli anyway.

Everything fits into the arm space Wheeler has to carry everything from the bodega up the flights of stairs. The two quarts of milk, vegetables, cheez whiz and jam in one bag and two loaves of bread with a tube of bologna wrapped together in paper under the other arm. Opening the front door is a bit of a challenge, but with the right shuffling of items and throwing his weight against it hard enough, it’s no problem at all.

The milk is starting to get a little bit heavy and cold against his arm by the fourth flight of stairs, but Wheeler’s still managing for the most part, quietly glad that he’s only got the one left to go. There’s a few voices coming from upstairs, kind of sounding like they’re chatting, but Wheeler can’t make out the tone until he reaches the landing of the fifth floor.

All the doors are closed like always, except for the one. His door. The guy from yesterday, Ernie, is putting up yellow police tape across it and doesn’t look twice at Wheeler, especially when Wheeler doesn’t spend more than a moment looking his way. Eyes dead ahead as he walks by and hears the voices clear as day.

“Dammit Jake, you killed a four year old kid! Did you really have to do that?” Bert laments from inside. He sounds like it’s more of an inconvenience than a travesty. Wheeler doesn’t stay to find out what happened to the others.

He finds himself at the door of the man he’s bringing milk for and rings the bell twice.

“Please let me in,” he whispers as softly as he can without his voice breaking. “Please?”

One of the guys is watching him, he can feel the eyes burning into the back of his neck. He can feel it as clearly as the chill of the milk is starting to make his arm ache.

He rings the bell again. “Please?”

He’d been getting prepared since the moment he walked in the door. Gathering all the loose weaponry from around the apartment and centralizing it on the living room table. Loading everything he could carry and sliding them into place on his holster when they’re filled. With a second’s notice, he could take out anyone who might come to the door.

Prepared for everything except a small boy pleading for his life, practically near tears, arms filled with groceries.

If he doesn’t open the door, the boy has probably a minute to live before one of the men in his apartment figure out that he’s part of the family. But Regal will be safe. On the other hand, if he opens the door, he’ll either save the boy’s life, or they’ll both get shot.

“Please open the door,” the boy whispers.

God, they should not be anyone’s last words…

He opens the door.

He’s inside. He’s safe. Is he safe? The man opened the door and let him in, but just how safe can he be? The guys are still out there, trying to figure out what to do with the bodies of his family so maybe… maybe they just can’t be his family for a little bit. That’s it, they’re just no one to him.

Thankfully, the apartment isn’t too big, so Wheeler can set down the groceries on the kitchen table and start putting the milk in the fridge. Just like he lives there. Just like he’s always lived there. Of course he’s always lived there with his… dad? Sure, his dad. His dad who doesn’t talk too much and likes drinking milk. His dad who wears big coats and full suits, even in the summer. And he… sent him out to get groceries to teach him responsibility. He’s got an accent… maybe he’s new in the country and adopted Wheeler not too long ago and until he gets an understanding of how American shops work, it’s up to Wheeler to do the shopping. He probably just gets frustrated that all the taxes aren’t included in the prices, so he never brings enough cash. Yeah, that could work. It’s a good story. And his dad has heard things about crime rates in New York, so he always keeps the door locked and only opens it when Wheeler rings the doorbell. And he told Wheeler never to talk to strangers, so that’s why Wheeler didn’t stop to ask any questions about the crime scene like another kid might. He’s a good dad and taught him well.

The fridge door is still open and Wheeler’s hand is still shaking on it, but the story is pretty much all there. He’s got all the bases covered.

There must have been some kind of mix-up when Jericho asked the captain to give him a crack squad. What he’d meant was that he wanted the best of the best. The elites. The ideal group to have alongside him when he made busts like this. What he’d gotten was a Canadian Beavis and Butthead and the kind of nitwits who not only turn their backs on suspects before the room is even clear and, even more stupid, who shoot blindly through walls.

In short, he got a team that were about as dumb as crackheads.

There’s blood all over the fucking floor and probably enough asbestos in the air to cut another 10 years off of all of their lives because what kind of jackass shoots through a wall on purpose? It’s made the hunt for the cash and for the dope all the harder. And now there’s probably other cops on the way because of all of the shooting that happened in the building, so they’re probably going to have to pause the hunt to explain everything.

It’s a fucking disaster.

Jericho’s almost about to punch through the damn wall when he spies the first sign this family was anything more than dysfunctional. There’s actually a cute little family photo on the wall. Framed and everything. Who’d have thunk it. Beretta and the waiter and… he’s pretty sure he shot that third guy in the bath and the little girl and a little boy. One who was not shot here today.

“Ang!” He calls in a voice sickly-sweet enough to send a chill down Angelo’s spine.

“Yeah? What’d you find?”

“Now, correct me on my math, but we’ve got four bodies here today and five people in this sweet little family.”

“Chris, I don’t think that kid was here today.”

“But you’ve seen him before?”

“He kinda looks familiar.”

“So if you kinda know him, there’s a chance he kinda knows us.”

“Yeah, but he’s a kid.”

“Ang, you dumb fuck, haven’t you ever seen Home Alone? Kids know more than we give them credit for. If there’s a chance, even a chance, that he knows our faces, God forbid our names, we’re fucked, you do know that, right?”

“Chris, just… calm down, okay? Look, we’ve got his picture, I’m sure his name is around here somewhere. Then we check the places kids play in the area. Ask if they’ve seen him. Kids trust cops.”

“I don’t care how the fuck you do it, I just want him found!”

Matt’s always so eager to put up the Police Tape. In any other set of circumstances, it’s almost endearing, but right now, when Jericho’s still high, but also angry, it’s just another stressor on Angelo’s day to try and maneuver through it.

“What’s he cussin’ a blue streak for?” Matt murmurs to him as Angelo ducks under his handiwork.

“We missed a little boy. I need to try and find the super, see if I can figure out anything about him.”

Missed a kid, hmm? There was something seriously weird about how the boy down the hall had to ring the doorbell three times before he got let in. On the one hand, his dad certainly looked disheveled enough to maybe have been sleeping, but on the other hand, why would a parent so concerned with security that he locks the door when he’s home do so while he knows his son is out, likely with no key of his own? There’s no way a little punk like that would be smart enough to just know the one person in the building who would not only be home, but who might actually let him in with a moment’s notice.

He’d be a fool if he didn’t at least take the time to double check. Listen for any sign of a kid actually living there and not just hiding.

The walls are thin enough, and he’s only a few feet away but he’s not hearing anything at all. There’s no feet running around, no asking for a cookie before dinner, or whatever the hell kids ask for these days. He’s practically ear to the door when he hears a soft click and then the much louder telltale sounds of cartoons. The exact same goofy-ass stunted dialogue of all the Saturday mornings of the past decade. They’ve woken him up on enough hungover weekends to be able to tell.

Sounds kind of like Transformers.

“Yo, I found it!”

Well, at least Hager’s making up for his being a moron earlier. A whole neat little pack of dope. Though ‘little’ being a bit of a misnomer. It’s enough of the missing shipment that Jericho feels safe assuming that the rest is gone. All having been stuck away inside a broken old radio. If Beretta were alive to be complimented on his hiding place, Jericho might even have considered giving him one.

The sore spot is the cash. There was a hundred in Beretta’s wallet, but there’s no way that was all of it. It’s still stashed somewhere, but there’s a good chance that ‘somewhere’ isn’t in the apartment.

The sirens outside are getting close enough that there’s no denying them anymore. They can frame a lot of what happened today as a drug bust that went bad, but not everything. They certainly can’t explain why they’re holding what’s close to a kilo of coke and not intending to turn it into Evidence. In moments like these, the last option is to get out before the uniforms get there.

“Okay, hand it over. We’re heading out, you stay here to explain,” he informs Hager, starting to drop from the E. Or maybe just because everyone around him is just so slow, it makes the pill wear off faster.

“Wh-” Hager’s stupid question is cut off by Jericho’s glare. He’s the one who gets to explain because he’s the one who killed a kid and turned the whole place into a biohazard from all the drywall dust. “Okay– what do I tell them?”

“What do you tell them? You tell them we were doing our job.”

#the slow burn isn't too slow on this one #I get to overexcited to let things burn slowly #this chapter was a lot of fun to write #and one of the ones I'm most proud of to compare to the movie #William Regal #Wheeler Yuta #Chris Jericho #AEW #Regal The Professional #Writing

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myokk · 4 months ago

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clumsy

pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!MC

word count: 9,1k

summary: sebastian is clumsy

cw: fluff, mutual pining, idiots in love, two really stubborn idiots in love to be exact, sir cadogan guest appearance, anne and imelda are the gremlin best friends every girl needs, smut (18+ ONLY), oral (f. recieving)

a/n: or: two stubborn brats make things more difficult than they have to be. I've been working on this for a MONTH more or less, ever since I drew the sketch that inspired it🫶 (I'm the world's slowest writer)

The first time Sebastian Sallow interacted with her after the fateful events of their fifth year, he fell for her.

Quite literally.

Maybe fell on her is more aptly put - Sebastian Sallow is not one to mince his words or say what he doesn't mean, after all. But, in the years to come, he always insists that he fell in love in that moment.

It was inexplicable. One moment, he was walking around, perfectly content with his loveless, boring life, and the next, his every waking moment was painful. Nobody had ever told Sebastian that being in love would physically pain or consume him so.

It all started like this: one moment, he's walking (well, striding) to Crossed Wands. Fine, he's running. Running late already, for the first meet-up of his last year. But - he isn't to blame for being late. He needed to check on something in the library - during his Transfiguration lesson, he had a hunch about something Professor Weasley had said in passing, and of course he had to go and check to see if he was right before he could even think about besting Leander in the inaugural duel of the Crossed Wands season but now, with how late he is - how many minutes ago had it started? - oh, Merlin, it's already been ten whole minutes and what if they've started without him (not that he can blame them) and -

Sebastian is abruptly pulled out of his thoughts when he collides with a strange obstruction in his way. He was just checking his father's old pocket watch, had only looked away for a split second and he could have sworn that, unless he was mistaken (which he never is), there wasn't a statue in the middle of the suspension bridge. And yet, he has run headfirst into something or someone, and now they are both flying through the air, books whirling around them in a flurry of pages and Sebastian unconsciously puts his arms out to grab her before they hit the ground and now he's holding her tight against him and they land with a loud, ungraceful thud, but at least she's not hurt.

Sebastian shakes his head to clear it after the impact that - miraculously - doesn't seem to have been as bad as it could have been, all things considered, and -

He freezes.

What has he done?

He's pressed up against the most impossibly lovely person he has ever seen quite possibly in his life, holding her tightly in his arms as she glares up at him in indignation, a faint flush spreading across her cheeks, making her face glow. Is this what the muggles mean when they say that they were struck by Cupid's arrow? Her hands scrabble uselessly at his chest as she tries to extricate herself from his grip. It's useless. Sebastian is completely frozen in place as he stares down at her, and he can feel his own face heating up at his inability to get off her. What's wrong with him?

"Sebastian," she repeats, and this time her voice registers in his brain. He realizes she has been talking to him this whole time, and as he stares at her face without comprehending - he couldn't have a coherent thought right now even if he wanted to - he sees her eyes dart quickly down, looking at where their bodies meet before she brings them back to his face, a deeper blush coming over her. "You -"

Oh, Merlin. It's her. He blinks and it's like the fog has cleared from his mind - almost, but-not-quite - and he realizes who he has unceremoniously crashed to the ground with him. The spines of the textbooks they are lying on top of dig into the arm that's pinned under her body and his other hand...he realizes (to his almost-horror) that to any students or professors walking by, it would seem as if they were caught up in quite the scandalous extra-curricular activity because his other hand is actively caressing her breast. Well, that's how it would look to any passerby, anyways.

Because there is no way he would be caught dead in such a compromising position with her.

The two of them haven't spoken since the events of their fifth year - the Year-That-Shall-Not-Be-Remembered-or-Acknowledged - and he had been perfectly content with his plan to continue this strange sort of ignoring that they had played all last year. Both of them pretending that they hadn't become impossibly close after only knowing each other for a few months - a closeness that he had gone and ruined by not knowing when to quit. All he had known to do back then was push push push because why couldn't she see things the way he had? The betrayal he had felt when she had gone behind his back to find her own way to cure his sister, and that one stupid word uttered in the heat of the moment, had caused an irreparable rift in their relationship and he would not allow himself to think about how much he missed her. Still misses her.

Just like he will not think about the fact that she is pressed beneath him in a compromising position, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she glares up at him in indignation. He continues to stare at her. Maybe his mouth is agape. She's stopped trying to get out of his grip and is resting her hands on his chest, seemingly waiting for an opportunity to push him off of her.

"Sebastian. Your hand," she repeats. "You're -"

Finally his idiot brain decides to wake up and Sebastian realizes with horror just how aroused he is at the moment and how did he never see her like this before? He gets up in a flash, pushing her back against the pile of books they're lying on top of, wondering if he can subtly adjust his robes without her realizing and then he makes the very grave mistake of looking down at her and she's still very much red-faced, propping herself up by her elbows and she looks so disheveled and lovely lying on top of the pile of books.

His idiot brain has now woken up completely, and how is it possible for one hormonal, eighteen-year-old wizard to be so embarrassed? He knocked her to the ground, pushed her further back in the books in his desperate attempt to get away from her, and now all he can think about is how to hide his arousal. Shameful, really. Sebastian quickly crouches down to help her pick up all of the books but she shoves him away and glares at him with an annoyance that he's never seen before.

"I can do it myself, thank you very much," she says with a huff, gathering everything they spilled up into her arms. She grabs the book Sebastian is holding out of his hands and he inhales sharply at the touch of her fingers grazing his.

Did someone - Garreth, maybe - spike his pumpkin juice with Amortentia during lunch? It's the only explanation he can think of as he stares blankly down at her. How else would he find her so beautiful, so breathtaking, when the last time they had interacted, Ominis and Anne had had to act as intermediaries for the two of them?

"Well," she says finally, slinging her school bag over her shoulder once all of her books have been unceremoniously shoved inside of it, "it's been...nice seeing you again, Sallow. I hope you had a good summer holiday."

And with that, she quickly turns and walks away in the direction she had been coming from, leaving a very confused Sebastian behind. He watches her as she walks away and her long, swishing braid is the last thing he sees before the door closes behind her at the far end of the bridge.

Eventually, he gathers his wits and wanders away.

He does not go to the first Crossed Wands meeting that afternoon after all.

She has not had a full-night's sleep since he somehow cursed her mind and her thoughts a week ago, and she can feel herself slowly slipping into insanity. A curse is the only answer that makes sense, the only thing that gives a conceivable answer to all the wicked dreams she has been having since that moment, dreams that cause her to wake up sweaty and breathless and needing him in the middle of the night in a way she has never felt before. She has been an absolute mess, a disastrous version of her normally quite put-together self, and she is not happy about it.

He's sitting next to her now - they were partnered up by the evil Professor Onai in their first NEWT Divination class of the year - and she's holding herself rigidly, arms tight across her chest, in an attempt to not accidentally touch him. Lately, every single time they make fleeting eye contact across the table during breakfast, or when they pass each other in the hallways, a shiver runs down her spine at the unfamiliar look in his eyes and she has to avert her eyes before it's too much.

Divination has never been a favorite subject of hers - too impermeable for her tastes. She is only taking it at the NEWT level because, during her career counseling with Professor Ronen at the end of her fifth year, he had said that if she wanted to be an Unspeakable she couldn't just work with logic (a preposterous thought, but as a sixteen-year-old she hadn't seen any recourse in arguing with the Ministry's requirements). She supposedly needs to get comfortable with the intangible as well. It doesn't mean she has to enjoy it, though: she doesn't, and never will. The Divination classroom is dark and stuffy, tucked away in one of the highest towers of the castle, and the nauseating smell of incense always coats her nasal cavities long after the class has finished. She finds her thoughts getting muddled in the haze of candle smoke and swirling orbs on the shelves around her - magic somehow always feels thicker up here - and the presence of a certain someone whose knees keep brushing hers under the tiny table they're sharing, a certain someone who has - improbably, inconceivably, impossibly - hit a growth spurt that summer and now towers over her and had encompassed her completely when he knocked her to the ground, isn't helping her concentration at -

"This week, we are going to review everything we learned together last year," Professor Onai says, after the class had rearranged itself based on her instructions. Sebastian shoots a look at her as she shakes her head in an attempt to clear it and sits up straighter. She hopes that Onai's lecture will help her concentrate and clear her mind a bit. If she has something to focus on, to try and think of and remember, it will be better than him. Anything would be better than Sebastian. Onai gives an appraising look to each table before continuing her speech. "As your NEWTs are at the end of the year, we need to make sure you are as prepared as possible. Open your books to page two-hundred and thirty. Today we're going to review the art of palmistry. I should hope that you do not need the aid of your textbook to help interpret the lines in your partner's palm but in the case that you do -"

She chances a glance at Sebastian before getting out her copy of Divining the Undivinable from her bag and wishes she hadn't. He looks uncomfortably big sitting on the tiny tea chair across from her, barely any hints of the boy who had completely swept her away two years ago visible on the sharper planes of his face. When had he - had they - grown up?

Sebastian Sallow was - is - charming, and that had been her downfall. She had successfully avoided his charms the year before, and she wasn't going to let that happen this year, no matter how much her body rebelled against her mind and resolve. Because, as she reminds herself, Sebastian Sallow is also manipulative, and cold-hearted, and selfish.

"Well," she says archly, opening her book. She will not look at him. "I suppose I am still quite ignorant of the practice of Divination, so do forgive me if I have to double-check my readings in the textbook."

He says her name as she opens the book, and she ignores him. He says her name again. She continues to ignore him. He grabs the book from her hands and puts it the correct way for her. She was looking at it upside-down. Her cheeks heat up and she continues flipping through the pages, as if nothing has happened. She finds page two-hundred and thirty. She pretends to be interested in what she sees.

(Divination is unfortunately not interesting.)

Oh, fine.

"Do you want to start, or should I?"

These are the first words she has voluntarily spoken to him - not including the events of last week, which do not count as they were most decidedly not voluntary - since he called her ignorant a year and a half ago. He somehow looks surprised to see that she has addressed him, and for some reason this fills her with rage and a strange sort of confidence. Why shouldn't she be able to talk to him?

"Here," she says, putting her hand out towards him, palm up, ignoring the strange fluttering feeling in her chest when he gently grabs it with one of his. Sebastian looks up at her, waiting for her to continue speaking, and were she not looking at him so intently she would have easily missed the bob of his throat as he swallows nervously. "Show me how it's done."

Her breath catches in her throat at the small, mischievous smirk he shoots to her before he bends over her hand and gently starts tracing the lines on her palm with the fingers of the hand that's not holding hers in place. His touch is feather-light and somehow soft, despite the roughness of his fingers as they drag over her palm. Every nerve in her body seems to have moved to wherever he touches and all of the bravado and anger she had just felt is quickly melting away. When she finally finds her voice, she hates how soft and breathy it sounds. She can't look away from the sight of his larger hands caressing hers.

"Well? What do you see? Do you remember the different lines? Because I -"

She falters. The murmurs of their classmates blend together in the background and the dim lights of the candles...the hazy, thick atmosphere and his proximity and the barely there touches of his rough fingertips on her sensitive palm are altogether too overwhelming and she needs to get out of there. She's supposed to be angry with him. Furious, even. Holding this grudge has been the only way she has been able to have any sort of power over him this past year, and yet...all she can think about at the moment are the sinful dreams she's been having lately where he presses her against a wall, desperately kissing her lips, her neck - even she knows that there has to be more to it - but what?

Sebastian blinks as she snatches her hand away like it's been burned and - oh, Merlin - she shoves the textbook back into her schoolbag and almost knocks the candle on the table over and wouldn't it be awful if she had started a fire? But she can't think about any of that now in her haste to just get out of the claustrophobic Divination tower.

Vaguely, she can hear Professor Onai asking her if everything is fine and she's not sure but she thinks she mumbles something about needing to go to the Hospital Wing - that's a good enough excuse to leave, isn't it? - but then she hears his voice, deep and cutting through the fog in her mind -

"Don't worry, I'll take her and make sure she gets there fine." A muffled response from their professor and then his voice, just as clear as before. "No, I don't know what happened..."

She hears him calling her name as she flees down the spiral staircase, almost tripping over her feet in her rush to get away from him, but he catches up quickly, reaching out to grab her arm in an attempt to slow her down. She stops running immediately - she supposes her traitorous body wants to see what he has to say, or maybe it just wants to bask in his intoxicating proximity. He crowds her space, and she sees that unfamiliar look in his eyes again. So very different from the cold disdain she had seen the last time she had been this close to him, during the argument that had ended their friendship.

"Let go of me," she whispers, but there's no conviction in her voice as she gazes into his deep, brown eyes. He can tell she doesn't mean it and doesn't make any move to listen to her. Why can't she hold on to the rage? A muggle quote about anger floats through her mind: Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. What a sweet poison her anger at Sebastian had been, while it lasted. She tries telling herself that he must still feel the same as the evening he had called her ignorant (ignoring the small voice in her head that reminded her of the letters of apology he had sent (that she had burned without reading), the times he had tried to get Anne or Ominis involved and apologize for him) - because why couldn't he just tell her himself? Maybe she had shut down any and all attempts he had made to repair the rift that he had caused in the first place, but she had been right to be so angry with him.

But oh, Merlin, he's getting closer to her, and she can now clearly see the freckles dusting his cheeks and nose and forehead and then before she knows it, his hand is sliding up her arm, leaving goosebumps everywhere he touches and then he's caressing her jaw with his rough thumb and he pauses. Her eyelids flutter closed as her head tilts towards him - she couldn't stop herself even if she wanted to (what does she want?). She can feel his warm breath ghosting over her lips and she has the improbable, ridiculous thought - how is he remembering to breathe? - before he speaks. His lips brush against hers with every soft word and a deep shiver runs through her body.

"I," she hears him say, his voice so, so low, "haven't been able to think since last week."

That's all she needs to hear, the brush of his bottom lip against hers all she needs to feel, to push her into closing what minuscule distance there is between them and then his lips are on hers and it's better than anything she's been imagining. His mouth is soft against hers, insistent, and her hands go up to grip the collar of his plaid jacket to make sure he doesn't go away or disappear on her.

She knows she's behaving wantonly, snogging Sebastian Sallow in the middle of the hallway where anyone could come across them, but third period has only just started and besides, she has had a week of restless nights being tortured by thoughts of him. A week of a few hours of sleep found here and there. Just one kiss should be enough to help her get over these strange feelings, right? She only feels like this because having him lie on top of her after he crashed into her - that satisfying weight of him - the friction of his thumb brushing against her nipple - had made her realize just how stupid she had been, holding this grudge against him for -

She whimpers in protest but it quickly turns into a moan as his mouth moves away from hers and down to her neck. He pulls at her tight collar desperately - she hears some seams ripping - to give him better access to it, and she finds herself arching her back and pushing her body closer to his as he nuzzles her neck with his nose before giving it open, sloppy kisses. When he hears her, he moves back to kissing her, greedily capturing every breathy moan that comes out of her mouth, but the noises coming from him are matching hers, and at the sound she feels an unfamiliar clenching deep in her stomach. Her fingers come up to his hair, going through the silky curls over and over - how are they as soft as his lips? - and he slowly pushes her back until she's sandwiched between his warm body and the cold stone of the wall behind her.

He lets out a low, frantic growl as a hand goes to grip the back of her head, holding her in place as he slants his mouth over hers. He tastes like cinnamon and...like something forbidden. What has gotten into her? She hates him, and yet...

They have abandoned any pretense of propriety - had they ever even been trying? - by this point. His tongue swipes across her lips and then she is completely lost to him, to every sensation of his mouth, and tongue, on hers. His large hands - the wicked hands that had been caressing her palm and had caused this whole mess in the first place - have moved to her waist and are pulling her even closer to him. When he pulls away briefly, she whines in protest, opening her eyes to glare at him. The sight of him, flushed and breathless, his eyes wide and pupils dilated - must match her own appearance because she sees the same hunger she feels in his eyes. She has never seen Sebastian Sallow so disheveled, but she finds she quite likes it and tugs on his curls with a whine. He obliges eagerly, bringing his mouth back to hers.

She's pressed as tightly against him as she can possibly be, and yet it still isn't enough. Her back arches once again, trying to find something, and then he slots one of his knees between her legs. She moans at the friction caused by his movements, can feel an unfamiliar slickness forming at the juncture between her legs, and this seems to spur him on further as his kisses get more desperate and sloppy. She moves against his leg, trying to relieve some of her discomfort, gasping into his mouth, when -

They freeze. Even if they are fully, completely, absorbed by...whatever this is, they can't ignore the strange, metallic clanking sound coming from their left. Sebastian pulls his head back from her slowly, reluctantly, breathing heavily, and looks over to see what the noise is. She wants to, but all of a sudden the horrifying reality of what they've been doing sinks in and oh god what if the noise is a person? Someone who has now seen her in what might possibly be the most mortifying moment of her life - desperately snogging Sebastian Sallow - and she finds she can't look over. She tucks her head into his neck to hide her face as she listens.

"I demand that you get away from her at once, you knave! Cease your attack!"

The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but she's certain that it doesn't belong to any of her classmates. He almost sounds...medieval, but -

"I made haste when I heard sounds of distress coming from down the hallway," the voice continues, "and it appears I have arrived not a moment too soon!"

She brings her head away from Sebastian's shoulder but still refuses to look over at whoever is speaking, instead choosing to stare at Sebastian's face. He's still deliciously flushed from their snogging, still breathing heavily, but now he looks terribly confused. His brows are furrowed, mouth opening and closing as he tries to come up with a response to the outrage currently being directed at him.

The unknown man is continuing his diatribe, almost not even stopping to breathe as he gets more and more worked up, and she hears some more clanking as he reaches a particularly exciting moment in his rant. Sebastian looks increasingly confused, but still shields her with his body, not moving away from her at all despite the accusations.

Her curiosity gets the better of her and she peeks over to see who it is.

The man who has been reprimanding Sebastian so boldly is none other than Sir Cadogan. Although she's never interacted with him directly, she often hears him yelling at his pony as she passes his portrait on her way to Divination. The knight is standing between two witches having tea, who are glaring at him quite angrily as he gesticulates wildly - every movement of his sword comes dangerously close to their display of cakes and sandwiches and it looks like he has already broken some plates. His armor is ill-fitting and loose on him, which explains the terrible noise.

"You rascally knave! I assure you that you do not want to find out what will happen to you if you do not unhand the fair maiden."

He brandishes his sword again, and the woman closest to him quickly snatches her tea cup away to save it from being broken as well. "Come now, Sir Cadogan," she says, exasperated. "Can't you see that these two are in love?"

The other woman joins her protests, nodding vigorously. "Yes, exactly that. Leave them be!"

"Nonsense," he exclaims. "I too have succumbed to my baser instincts on occasion and I can assure you that this is decidedly not what is occurring."

As Sir Cadogan continues to alternate between lecturing her and Sebastian, and directing his two attention to the ladies who are defending them, she looks back to the boy in question. Sebastian is looking down at her, a bemused smile on his lips and she feels a twinge in her chest. His face is still so close to hers that if she wants to, they could be snogging again with barely any effort and her eyes briefly flicker down to his tempting mouth before going back to his eyes, but...

What had gotten into her? What is she doing?

He had somehow managed to manipulate her again, because there is no way that this situation could have happened otherwise. All of a sudden, the anger she's been feeling for the past year and a half - that had left for a brief, blissful moment - surges again, and she pushes Sebastian away from her with as much force as she can muster. She almost feels bad as the happiness in his face turns to confusion, then frustration as he realizes she's getting away from him.

"Stay away from me," she hisses, picking up her discarded schoolbag from its spot on the ground. As she stalks down the hall, she can hear Sir Cadogan cheering on her bravery over the ringing in her ears.

She has a lot of thinking to do.

Sebastian Sallow's List of Priorities (in no particular order):

Figure out what the hell I'm going to do when I graduate;

Figure out how the hell I'm going to finish this bloody Charms essay before tomorrow; and

Figure out what the hell is going on between us

Sebastian sits in an undisturbed corner of the library - nobody ever comes to this table because it's tucked away between shelves of incredibly dense magical theory books - and is twirling his quill in his fingers, watching the ink splatter on the list he spent his precious time writing instead of the Charms essay he should be working on. He's far away from the first-years who like to congregate by the windows and watch the leaves fall softly to the ground rather than study for their classes. He's made especially sure that he is far, far away from her.

It's not his choice, mind you, but he needs to be a gentleman about these things. If she needs some time and space to figure out that she's as crazy for him as he is her, fine. But even Sebastian Sallow's patience runs thin, and he's not sure how much longer he can give her to come to her senses before he snaps and takes matters into his own hands. If things were up to him, the two of them would be sitting far too close together now in this secluded corner, and maybe he would need to put a hand over her mouth to ensure her complete silence as he runs a hand up her thigh.

Now that he knows what delicious sounds can come out of her mouth - sounds that he caused - he's been having a hard time concentrating on, well, anything. Sebastian surreptitiously glances across the library to where she's sitting and studying with his sister and Imelda. Ever since the events after their Divination class, Sir Cadogan has taken it upon himself to follow Sebastian around the halls of the castle, tripping through frames and disrupting their inhabitants as he lectures Sebastian on love. The tea party women had managed to convince the knight that he had disrupted an amorous exchange, and Sebastian fervently wishes they hadn't.

The whole school is abuzz with rumors about who it could be. Nobody has even come close so far with their guesses, but Anne and Imelda are having too much fun teasing him about it. Somehow, she has managed to avoid suspicion - he wonders how this is even possible, since she's never been able to hide what she's thinking. He makes eye contact with her - has she been staring at him this whole time? - and she flushes before looking over to Imelda, who's laughing too loudly at something Anne's just said. Sebastian can't tear his eyes away from her profile, his eyes following the curve of her eyebrow, the slight upturn of her lips as she smiles at her friends, her eyes as they dart back to him, her cheeks as she turns an even darker shade of red as she realizes he's still watching her. She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, and rests her chin on her hand as she tries to look absorbed in what Anne is saying to her.

Sebastian wonders if she's thought about him as much as he's thought about her. Judging by how she had snogged him back, he's positive that she feels the same way, but then he remembers how she had looked at him before she fled, and he's not so sure. He sighs as he looks back to his list, bringing his quill back to the third item and ripping the paper as he crosses it out again. His mind has been going in circles since that moment and he doesn't know what to think. He slowly puts everything into his schoolbag before heading out of the library for yet another freezing cold shower that hopefully tempers his now-permanent state of arousal whenever she's around.

He doesn't notice her eyes following him as he walks out of the library.

He doesn't hear her hurried excuse to Anne and Imelda as she shoves her things into her bag and rushes to follow him.

He doesn't hear her light footsteps as she gets closer to him.

When she puts a hand out to touch his arm as he waits for the moving staircase to stop, with a soft, "Sebastian" accompanying it, he nearly jumps out of his skin. He was so absorbed with thoughts of her, that to see her standing at his side, closer than she had been since they kissed was almost his snapping point.

"Can we talk?" she asks, looking almost embarrassed as she avoids his eyes. She instead looks determinedly at his collar. He thinks she probably notices that he swallows nervously before acquiescing, but she says nothing as she turns and starts hurrying away from him without waiting to see if he follows her.

She must know that he would follow her anywhere at this point.

They weave through hallways - Sebastian vaguely wonders where exactly they're going - before reaching a little alcove, hidden by a suit of armor. She looks around before pulling him into it. It's almost curfew and the halls are never that busy when the weather is as beautiful as it has been these days - the end of September seems to be clinging on to the summer for as long as possible.

Her lips are on his before he can even ask her what she needed to talk with him about, hungry and desperate. Sebastian is too stunned to pull away - not that he would actually want to. Her arms wrap around his neck, keeping Sebastian close, slender fingers sliding through his hair.

"What," she says breathlessly between kisses - almost not even moving her mouth away from his enough to be able to enunciate properly, "are you doing to me? I haven't been able to think for the last month."

Sebastian smiles into her mouth, wondering if she knows that she's repeating the very thing he told her two weeks ago. Maybe she has been thinking of him all this time - he almost hopes that she's been suffering as much as he has. Instead of responding, he moves a hand to cup her jaw, deepening the kiss. His other hand moves to her waist, gripping it tightly, pulling her flush against his body and she gasps into his mouth. He slowly moves her closer to the window alcove behind them, snogging her senseless the whole time. She moans into his mouth which just spurs him on further - her skirt rides up to her hips as Sebastian trails a hand up her stockinged thigh and they both gasp when his hand reaches skin. Her skin is so, so soft and her breathing gets faster as he continues to caress her inner thigh, closer to the bend between her thigh and her center. Sebastian wonders if she's ever been touched there before by someone else and jealousy flares up inside of him at the thought.

In one swift move, he scoops her up and places her so that she's sitting on the window-ledge, the dusky light of the sunset illuminating her from behind and making her wispy flyaway hairs a golden halo around her. Sebastian's breath catches in his throat - has he ever seen anything so beautiful as her in that moment? - she's staring up at him, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, her breathing shallow and anticipation in her eyes. "You're," he starts saying and his throat goes dry. He brings a hand up to tuck the errant lock of hair - the one she had tucked earlier in the library - behind her ear and she leans her head into his touch, closing her eyes briefly before looking up at him again with wide eyes. "You're perfect."

She smiles faintly and pulls his head back down towards hers and now she's brushing her lips against his, teasing him, before it's too much and he grips the back of her head, holding her in place as he crushes his mouth against hers in a bruising kiss. Her knees are on either side of his waist, and she desperately grinds her core against his throbbing erection and they both groan at the friction. Sebastian moves his hands down to her thighs again as he kisses her, slowly caressing his way up and pushing her skirt up further until it's completely bunched around her waist. She gasps into his mouth at his first tentative touch after he pushes aside her undergarments. Sebastian swipes a finger up her slit, through the slick that coats it, and then he starts circling her clit with slow, even strokes. She shivers against him - at his touch - clinging tightly to his shoulders and gasping into his mouth as he continues.

Every little noise coming out of her mouth, feeling how wet she is, how the slickness keeps growing growing growing makes Sebastian hungry for more - it isn't enough -

Slowly - so slowly - he wants to savor this moment - he lowers himself until he's kneeling between her legs and he looks up at her. Her face is deliciously flushed, all swollen lips and hair in a wild cloud around her face and all she can do is stare down at him. Her chest is heaving and she tries to close her legs - hide what is exposed to him - but he holds her thighs firmly in place on either side of his head. He turns his head and kisses her inner thigh, maintaining eye contact as he swipes his tongue across where he's just kissed, moving closer towards her slick center.

"Oh," she breathes, not-quite-a-word, not-quite-a-gasp, when his mouth reaches her center and hovers over it, lips slowly teasing her the way she had just teased him. Sebastian tentatively runs his tongue up her slit; the loud moan she lets out when he reaches her clit makes him stay there, applying light and not-so-light pressure in equal measure.

Her hands are scrabbling at his hair, digging into his scalp, ruining his earlier attempts to make it look presentable, hopefully attractive, for her these days. She's pushing his head deeper into the space between her legs, starting to rock herself slightly on his mouth, and Sebastian is happy to oblige. He eagerly laps up her slit, and the obscene wet noises as he continues combined with her whimpers and barely-spoken profanities "oh-yes-fuck-yes-there-please-" are making him hard beyond belief. He's straining against his trousers, begging to be let free. Without moving his face from her, he unbuttons his trousers and starts palming himself, using the slickness weeping out of the tip as lubrication.

She's abandoned all control at this point, grinding herself into his face as he laps her up, and it's driving him wild - knowing that he's doing this to her - causing her to be so undone. Normally she's so poised and aloof, never letting any real emotion flicker across her face, so to see her so desperate and needy and wanting him so -

Sebastian's gasping into her, tongue deep inside of her, "ohmygod" he hears her whisper, her hips driving into his face when she shudders and goes still, pulsing around the tongue that's deep inside of it. He slows down, smiling as he continues to run his tongue up her slit until she's responsive again. He kisses her inner thigh and hears her moan before getting up, caressing a finger down her love-struck face and leaning his head down to kiss her deeply. With his other hand he's still touching himself - the thought that she can taste herself on his tongue driving him crazy - and he starts rubbing its blunt head against her swollen clit. She takes it out of his hand- he groans at the feeling of her soft hands (the hands he had held a week ago in Divination and pictured doing this exact thing) tentatively caressing his length before she begins to slide it up and down her slit, coating it in her wetness.

Sebastian has surrendered all control to her - resting his hands on either side of her hips on the windowsill, tucking his head into the crook of her neck and thrusting with her movements as he loses himself in the sensation of sliding through her slick folds. He can feel his release building building building, and when he finally comes, all over her perfect, pink center, it feels like a finally.

Sebastian feels so, so heavy as he pulls his head away from her shoulder, as if he could fall into a blissful sleep right there, in the little window alcove where they've hidden themselves away. The sun has now set completely and they're in shadow as they stare at each other, the sound of their ragged breathing filling the tiny space.

"Sebastian, I..."

She's staring at him with an unfathomable expression on her face, still holding him in her hand, her other hand playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. They look down and he feels his face heat up even more at the mess he's made - he quickly pulls out his wand and cleans her up, before looking back at her, giving her a wry smile as he buttons up his pants and helps her off the ledge. "What did you want to talk to me about, again?"

She gives a slight shake of her head and looks away, but she can't hide the small smile that's growing on her face just like she can't help her eyes that keep wandering over to his. He knows the growing smile on his face matches hers - did that really just happen? She reaches over to lace her fingers through his as they walk around the suit of armor. "I - it's not important."

"Come on," he says, not being able to resist the opportunity to tease her - he's somehow managed to break through the barriers she's set up around her, and he's not about to let the opportunity slide. "Surely that's not what you had in mind when you..."

Sebastian trails off as he sees the expression in her face turn to one of horror - he didn't think his teasing was that bad, was it? - but she's also pulling her hand out of his like she's been burned and -

He follows her gaze, to where it's fixed at the end of the hallway and he knows that once again his face mimics hers. He will never live this down.

Standing at the end of the hallway and looking like two cats who've just found a huge dish of milk, are his sister and Imelda.

Misery.

Complete and utter misery are what she's feeling, if she has to put it into words, which she does. Writing things down always helps her out, helps her organize her thoughts into some sort of order. Except...this time around, it's not really helping. She can't seem to make any sense of her feelings for Sebastian.

She looks over the muddled mess of words she's written down - stream of consciousness, incomprehensible babble - and sighs. She's been dreaming of falling in love since she was a young girl - Jane Austen will do that to you - and can't believe that now that she's had her opportunity, it has to go and be with Sebastian Sallow. Because it has to be love, hasn't it?

There can be no other explanation for the painful way her stomach twists itself up whenever she catches a glimpse of him these days, the way he's consuming her every thought - even when she's dreaming she can't escape him. She can't get the sight of his tousled curls between her legs, his mischievous, warm brown eyes looking up at her as she had the most mind-numbing, toe-curling orgasm of her life - none of the times she's touched herself have ever come close to the sensations he managed to evoke.

Every time she's walking through the hallways between classes and hears his loud voice as he jokes with Garreth, or Ominis, about quidditch or Merlin-knows-what her eyes snap to his face as if he were the sun, and she a sunflower searching for its warmth. And he is most decidedly not the sun. He has the tendency to snort when he laughs, and he laughs too much, especially at his own jokes. Sometimes he talks while he eats. He always twirls his quill between his long fingers in the most annoying way, splattering ink onto any parchment unfortunate to be caught underneath. But he also...

He also always goes out of his way to prepare Ominis's Potions ingredients (why Ominis decided to take and was accepted into NEWT level is a mystery to everyone), occasionally stops to play a round of gobstones with Zenobia when he has the time. Sebastian can often be found in his favorite armchair in the Slytherin common room, resting his face on his hand as he idly flips through the pages of some book, looking altogether too handsome as he does so. And when he stretches and yawns at the end of every Arithmancy lesson - like he is now - his shirt lifts up a bit and she can see a tan sliver of his stomach and -

Snapping in front of her: she blinks and looks over: when she sees it's Imelda her face immediately turns beet red and she grabs the paper she's been doodling on and rips it to shreds as fast as she can.

"Are you fantasizing about a certain annoying someone?" Imelda asks with a wicked grin, dramatically looking over her shoulder at the certain someone in question. He's still stretching, blinking sleepily; when he notices the two girls watching him he flushes deeply. Her stomach twinges again at the sight of him noticing her - has he thought about her since that moment as much as she has? What would she do if he had? Or...if he hadn't? - and she focuses instead on the paper she is currently destroying.

"Imelda," she hisses, glaring at her best friend, "stop."

Imelda does not stop.

Imelda doesn't stop during their walk to Herbology, and she does not stop as they set up their planting stations, and she most certainly does not stop as they mutter charms over their plants.

Ever since she experienced the most wonderful moment in her whole life, followed by the most mortifying, Anne and Imelda have not stopped pestering her about it. They've finally solved the 'Sir Cadogan Puzzle' - I knew it was you all along, claims Anne - but if they truly knew what had happened between her and Sebastian, she's afraid the two of them would simply combust. She loves them dearly, but they never know when to stop, and they've been pushing and poking and prodding her for more information the whole week. She has managed to remain tight-lipped and, she hopes, mysterious about the whole thing, but she's getting tired of the teasing.

"Really," Anne says, wiping her forehead and leaving a trail of dirt behind, "if you would only talk to him, I would stop bothering you. Promise."

"Yes," chimes in Imelda, on her other side, wrestling the leaves of her own plant into submission. "You know, after we saw the two of you holding hands and looking at each other with stars in your eyes, I'm really starting to doubt that you hate him as much as you claim."

"Were the two of you snogging in secret all of last year too? Because, I'm starting to get annoyed thinking of all the times I had to talk to my brother for you because of your stubborn pride."

Does she still hate him? She certainly thinks she should, but then her thoughts get terribly confusing as she continues to think about him, and she realizes all of her old hatred has long since faded. Anne has forgiven her brother, Ominis has forgiven him, and all that remains is her.

They should talk, but she doesn't know what to say.

She's afraid that maybe the man she's been inventing in her mind this past month is simply a figment of her imagination - a fictitious being created by an accumulation of stolen glances when he doesn't know she's watching, someone who all of their classmates seem to like, someone who is very different from the fifteen-year-old boy she had that terrible argument with all that time ago. Maybe he doesn't actually exist.

She would be crushed if he's hiding the fact that he still holds on to that desperate darkness that had driven him to save Anne by any means necessary.

And so she keeps her space. She watches him from afar, feeling the hatred slowly melt off of her, falling more in love every day, but too cowardly to make the next move.

Anne and Imelda continue bantering on either side of her, not noticing - or, more likely, not caring - that she isn't participating.

Sebastian's hands are sweating. He wipes them on the inside of his robes as he glances at the girl next to him. She's holding herself rigidly, but she did this to herself, sitting next to him at dinner as she had.

Well, sitting next to him hadn't been completely her idea if he's being honest. He'd been having dinner with Anne, and the two of them were dying of laughter as she recounted seeing Duncan Hobhouse get tormented by Peeves earlier that day. One moment, Anne had been demonstrating what she had seen using her potatoes and green beans as props, and the next, a particularly evil grin had lit up her face as she pushed her plate away with gusto and jumped to her feet, calling her over.

"It would be such a shame for these potatoes to go to waste, seeing as I have a very important meeting to attend," Anne had said, after pushing her friend into the very tight space at Sebastian's side. "Never mind the mess, I can assure you I didn't actually eat the food..."

And with that, Anne had flounced away, Imelda on her arm, the two girls cackling to each other as they snuck wicked glances over their shoulders at the couple.

A couple who is now steadfastly avoiding each other and trying their hardest not to even brush elbows. Sebastian is altogether too aware of her presence, has been for the better part of a month, and his patience is dangerously close to snapping. He keeps getting maddeningly close to finally getting her to open up to him - had actually achieved it for a few blissful moments - just to have it be taken away again. It's almost embarrassing how many times he's thought about their encounter. She had been everything he'd been dreaming about and more - soft, responsive, just as desperate as him - so why has she been avoiding him so thoroughly?

Yes, he's caught her staring at him more times than he can count, with that same unfathomable expression she had before, almost dreamy - wistful - could it be love? But he knows that it's preposterous, wishful thinking on his part. If it were love - if she felt the same crazy, tumultuous emotions that he was feeling constantly - she wouldn't be so cold towards him. Even if she was staring at him more than ever before.

He doesn't notice as she slips a folded paper into the book sitting next to his plate, but he does notice that she sits next to him for barely five minutes, not even touching the food that Anne has so graciously left her, before she gets up and slips away without so much as speaking a single word to him, or even looking in his direction at all.

Sebastian's sitting in a nearly empty common room after curfew, flipping through his book as he normally does this time of day, when she sees him pause.

Although she's been waiting for this moment, watching him from the corner she's tucked herself away in, she feels ready to pass out from nerves. Her heart's ready to burst out of her chest as she watches him curiously pick up the letter she slipped in his book earlier, brow furrowed. She wrings her hands nervously as she watches him read the letter and flip over the page to see if there's more, and then he goes back to read it again from the beginning.

She wasn't expecting him to read it a second time, let alone a third time, still with an inscrutable expression on his face. Maybe she should have positioned herself closer so she could see every emotion flickering through his face as he reads - she's too far away to see anything and she curses her lack of foresight. If she moves now, he'll see her, and she doesn't even know what she was thinking when she wrote the letter, when she managed to convince Anne to help her get close to Sebastian earlier that night during supper, when she moved herself to sit in this corner just so she could watch him find and read the -

"Hello."

She nearly jumps out of her skin with a muffled shriek at the sound of his voice so close to her. Why does she feel almost guilty when she looks up at him? She's so, so afraid.

Emotions have never come easily to her. Showing them is something she's not sure will ever come naturally - Anne and Imelda can laugh and shout without a care in the world, but she always holds herself back. Hides a small part of herself away, that only she knows about. Baring herself completely to Sebastian in the letter she feverishly wrote the day before was like ripping out a part of her soul and giving it to him to keep. Once the words were written down, there was no way to take them back, not that she wants to.

But what if he rejects her?

Her eyes get hot and tears cloud her vision as she stares up at him, still wringing her hands together over and over, feeling like she's positively going to burst with the force of the emotions roiling around inside of her. Why did she think this would be a good idea?

Now he's kneeling in front of her, holding her hands in his bigger, rougher ones - reminiscent of that fateful day so long ago in Divination when he had flustered her so - and a thumb is gently wiping away the big, fat tears she didn't even realize were rolling down her cheeks and she lifts her face from watching their intertwined hands and gazes tremulously into his eyes.

They are so, so gentle and warm and full of love, but the emotions are still too much for her and she can't stop crying for some unfathomable reason, so the kiss they share is wet and lovely and full of incredulous laughter.

"I love you too," he whispers between kisses, over and over again, until the words almost lose meaning - but these words could never lose their meaning when they come from him.

In the years to come, they always bicker about who was the first to say it. Sebastian says that writing doesn't count - that his words are the ones that decide who is the victor in this small argument - but she always just smiles at his insistence, knowing that he's kept her letter tucked inside whatever book he's reading since it first fell onto his lap.

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tlirswriting · 2 months ago

Text

[They Colonized Mars, entry 4 // start here]

Venus:

Second planet from the sun, rendered uninhabitable

Roman goddess of love, beauty, and sex

> Atlas walks down the steps into Cythera’s, crossing the energy disruption field's threshold — a series of simple devices set up around the perimeter of the club to cancel out the city's artificial gravity — and he feels lighter, nearly weightless, the pressure lifting from his bones.

> The air is warm and sweet in the hazy basement room, thick with candy-flavored nicotine and THC vapor. A tall, four-armed Venusian dances on a small stage against the far wall for a sparse crowd, glowing pink and glittering in the spotlight as she mouths along to the old 2260s pop hit Acid Rain.

> The music thumps through Atlas, the beat reverberating up from the floor and settling into his chest, pulsing in his lungs. He unzips his jacket and makes his way to the bar at one side of the room to order two of his usual drinks; something strong and fruity with tiny paper umbrellas in it.

> “This is what people do,” He says to SaM-B, talking over the bass as he sets one glass on top of it.

> “I cannot drink; I have no mouth.”

> “That's okay, you just have to stand there, maybe you're… moody, and mysterious, or something. Or maybe you're shy, ‘cause it's your first time coming here.”

> “And this is normal? I am doing it correctly?”

> “Sure, yeah.”

> Atlas leans his elbow on the bar and sips his drink, watching the spots of light spinning across the walls, watching the people — mostly Human — bobbing along in ripples or sitting at tables. Two bored-looking lesbians chat quietly in the same corner Atlas always sees them, but he never caught their names; nor the man in a leather harness with scars across his chest, or the girl with green hair that might have been natural.

> “This place is usually packed tighter when I come here,” He explains. “Saturday night, people are rubbing against each other, snorting zidge in the bathroom…”

> “This is fun?” SaM-B asks him.

> “Well, I like it.”

> He downs the rest of his drink and makes his way to stand by the stage where a handful of people are crowded, staring up at the Venusian; she's ethereally androgynous, shimmering like a mirage, larger than life in her heels and moving like gravity forgot her. She calls herself Majel Stardust.

> Alcohol works its fingers through Atlas, relaxing his shoulders, easing the knots in his back. He breathes — digs through his wallet for a 1.0 note — reaches out to her, hands touching briefly when she takes it, leaning close enough to smell her perfume and she tucks it into her bra. She's electric, dripping glitter, commanding attention; she's mile-long legs and hands you can't keep track of, she's power and grace, you'd almost believe the blasting music was her own voice.

> It's all an illusion, but Atlas loves the show, dazzling lights mirrored in rows of bioluminescent spots along his cheekbones and down his arms, only visible when his defenses and inhibitions are lowered.

> SaM-B holds perfectly still beside him, watching intently, its lights blinking in time with the rhythm.

> She finishes her set, and disappears behind the curtain as the people cheer. A moment later, she's behind him, a hand lightly brushing his shoulder to spin him around.

> “Atlas, baby!” Her voice is deep and rich like honey. “It's a Tuesday, what are you doing here?”

> “Supporting artists,” He jokes as she leads him away towards a table near the back. “What are you doing, stealing me from the other queens?”

> She laughs. “The next one's Mz. Tuna Piano, that bitch is always late.”

> He hums. “Yeah, she is.”

> “But honestly, really,” She puts a right hand around his shoulders, and another right hand on his waist. “Talk to me. What are you doing here? You look like the train caught you.”

> He sighs. “I, uh… I had a weird day at work, I couldn't go straight home. Needed to clear my head.”

> She gestures to SaM-B after they sit down. “Who's your friend?”

> “My weird day at work.” He grabs the drink balancing on top of it and takes a sip. “That, and somebody died again.”

> “You gotta get out of there, honey; they'll eat you alive.”

> “I will, soon, it's just…” He shakes his head. “And go where, y'know?”

> “Here, maybe.” She sucks on a thin metal tube and blows a ring of pomegranate-scented clouds. “Anywhere. Doesn't matter much, does it?”

> Atlas chuckles. “I'm not built for entertaining.”

> “Some people like Martians, with your big brown eyes. You could grow your hair out…”

> “No, really, I can't.”

> She studies him for a moment, something knowing in her compound eyes.

> “I'm gonna get out,” He repeats. “I have plans, I just need a little more time.”

> She hums. “You want a hit?” She offers. “I hear sometimes humans get a kick out of CO2, makes ‘em dizzy — wonder what it'll do to you.”

> “No, thanks; I'd feel kinda bad taking your air.”

> “Suit yourself.”

> He watches her curl her mandibles around her electric cigar, draw in a deep breath, and beckon him closer — he obeys, leaning in, and she tilts his chin up to press her mouth to his and blow; he breathes in concentrated oxygen, carbon filtered by her lungs, fresh and crisp, artificially sweet. He pulls away and giggles.

> “There,” She says. “You don't have to be guilty about it.”

> SaM-B emits a high-pitched whine.

> “Poor thing,” Majel chuckles. “Is it sentient?”

> Atlas begins answering, “I'm pretty sure, yeah—”

> “I wish I was you,” It beeps.

> “I get that a lot, honey.”

> He sips his drink and thinks about what it meant by that.

> The night rolls on, soft around the edges, pleasantly dark and spinning like galaxies.

> Walking home, still buzzing, Atlas leans on SaM-B as they go — his body feels leaden and too-loose, metal pins digging into his flesh to keep his legs on straight — and he slurs: “D'you understand why I took you here?”

> It beeps, “I think so.”

> “My point…” The words swim in his head and roll clumsily off his tongue. “With all of this, is that there's more to being alive than your programming.”

> They can see Mars’ two moons meeting in the middle of the sky through the top of the dome, dancing among silver ribbons of noctilucent clouds.

> “I want a name,” It says.

> “Yeah?”

> “I think Selene would be nice.”

> “Yeah, alright.”

> A beat. “Can I be a girl?”

> “Sure, why not?”

> “Thank you, Atlas.”

> “You don't need my permission.”

> It’s true, but she needs to hear it.

> They wobble along the street under holographic advertisements shimmering in the artificial sky.

> Atlas vaguely remembers getting on the train — rising up over the streets, city lights glowing trails around him — dozing off, and waking up when the brakes squeal at his stop.

> Staggering out into the cold air again, he's hit by the wind, particles of sand scratching his face and sticking to the corners of his eyes. The storm is habitable inside the dome (outside, the winds are harsher, kicking up dust clouds miles high) but unpleasant enough that he quickens his pace the rest of the way home.

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#they colonized mars #my writing #original fiction #original writing #hi hello you are now entering the fun part :)c #this is a chapter ive been rotating in my mind a lot during the whole process of writing this story i hope it hits right #i have worked on this for so long yay yippee #those of you who know about shitty local drag bars know what im talking about. you get it

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