Chapter Text
Sebastian’s fingers are numb as they grip the cold metal of the chain link rope supporting him.
The playground swings squeak horribly when used as intended, but they haven’t used them that way in years. At this age, the swings are a place to sit and be stoned, for late night conversations like this one.
The cold chased Abby away a while ago, but it never bothers him. Sebastian had been hoping this would happen. That he’d find himself alone with Sam.
“He won’t be overseas forever. When he comes back home. Maybe then.”
Sebastian doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t believe him. He reaches lazily for the blunt pinched between Sam’s fingers. It’s clear out and there’s a dazzling array of stars above them. It looks too pretty to be a backdrop for this conversation.
“I know how bad you want to live in the city,” Sam laments.
Sebastian exhales, wishing he could expel the words with the smoke. It wasn’t just about the city. “Yeah.” He looks down at the wood chips and dirt under his feet and wonders why he does this to himself, over and over. Why he gets his hopes up that something might change, that something could move forward.
“We never did tell Abby about it,” Sam adds, like that matters.
“Well.” Sebastian blows another bitter cloud out into the cold air. “It’s not happening anyway.”
Sam steps sideways, planting his feet so he can pull his swing closer to Sebastian’s hunched form, wrapping his arm around Sebastian’s shoulders.
Sebastian turns his head and tucks into Sam's worn, denim jacket. He feels stupid because its something he’s always known, deep down. They were never going to leave, run off together. He doesn’t know why he keeps pretending that Sam might choose him, finally. Like he wouldn’t be seen kissing Penny at the homecoming dance ten minutes after Sebastian jerked him off in the chorus room.
“You know I love you, Seb.”
Sebastian’s heart aches, because he knows he’s going to qualify it momentarily. He knows this hug isn’t what he wants it to be, because it never is.
“We’ll always be best friends, you know?”
***
Sebastian is sullen and stewing as he walks home in the dark. Heads straight to his computer when he gets home. Stays up late working on a project even though the deadline is still far off, trying to fight off his disappointment and that familiar ache. An ache he’s been trying to banish for the better part of the past decade and a half.
It’s well past noon the next day when he comes upstairs, finally hungry enough to emerge from his lair. He can only seem to sleep well when he’s supposed to be awake.
His sister and stepfather are huddled around his mom’s carpentry desk, talking over an open binder with busy pages of data from their current project. Sebastian remembers too late that he must look particularly ghastly. He knows his eyes are bloodshot and fuck knows what his hair is up to. They look up from their work and take him in curiously.
“Rough night?” Maru teases.
“Need a fucking cigarette.”
“Language, Sebastian.”
“Yoba. Will you ever stop poisoning yourself-”
He cuts off their criticism with a slam of the front door.
Sebastian takes a few steps outside and takes out his lighter, trying to flick it on with shaking hands. His hunger is forgotten, replaced with a bitter resentment. He takes a puff but it's not enough, the taste is stale, the cigarette feels too thin in his fingers. He mutters a curse under his breath and lets it drop into the snow and disappear.
He’s not sure where he’s going, but he needs to get away from here, see if he can outrun his creeping anger. He’s trudging through the snow farther up the mountain, and every cold, crunchy step seems to make him more incensed, more frustrated with how absolutely stuck he feels. He knows Maru and Demetrius weren’t trying to piss him off, but that only makes him feel worse, somehow. He shouldn't be so fragile, but their little judgments and criticisms pile up to be too much, crushing him beneath them.
His house has all but disappeared behind him when it feels safe enough to admit to himself that this is really about last night. Sebastian bitterly revisits the scene, pictures Sam’s face when they said goodbye. He had looked pained, and sorry, but not truly regretful.
I’m a fucking idiot. Sebastian’s not sure how he latched on to this idea that if they left Pelican Town for the city, if they moved in together, Sam would suddenly fall in love with him. It’s not going to fucking happen, it was never going to fucking happen .
Sebastian enters the clearing where the train tracks are and he feels like he’s about to boil over, like he wants to yell and rage and chuck something against the mountainside. He usually likes to brood here and smoke, but in the winter this space is too still, too stark. He feels too vulnerable and out in the open in his current state.
He doesn’t remember choosing to go into the spa, but suddenly he’s inside, kicking the door in, slamming a metal locker shut, letting out an animalistic, rageful shout that echoes with agony. He doesn’t notice a bag and a sweatshirt at the other end, adjacent to where the workout equipment is.
He’s slumped over on a bench, heaving for breath with his head in his hands when he hears a concerned voice and feels a hand on his shoulder.
“Fuck- fuck off!” Sebastian shoves the phantom presence away in his shock and residual fury, leaping up from the bench.
He’s never liked Alex, he doesn’t even really know Alex. He wants to be embarrassed to be found in this state, but Alex only appears calmer, and then closer, trying to steady him.
“Hey- you’re alright. You’re okay.”
He’s definitely not okay. He’s red and panting and something about the sympathetic acknowledgement of his state makes his anger threaten to condense into tears. Sebastian realizes Alex must think he’s on the verge of having some sort of panic attack, but it’s not that, he’s just so pissed and so fed up that he’s close to crying and he can’t take a breath and fuck, maybe he’s right.
“Look at me. Just breathe. You’re okay.”
Alex is holding on to his arms, trying to steady him. There’s a tense moment where Sebastian’s hands go flat against Alex’s shirtless chest like he’s going to double hand shove him into the lockers behind them. Alex braces for that scenario, seems to expect it. They’re both huffing for breath now, inches apart.
Sebastian doesn’t shove him, though. Instead he finds himself momentarily hypnotized by Alex’s green eyes, his pupils blown from the adrenaline of the moment. There’s something in his expression that stirs some feral part of Sebastian’s mind, something forbidden and tempting that makes him want to sustain the tension between them, to escalate it. The room feels like it’s fading around them as they huff to alternate beats.
Sebastian nudges his chin forward almost imperceptibly, but just enough.
The kiss is as mutual as it is rough, Alex's hand is gripping the front of his shirt and Sebastian opens his mouth wide and hungry for him. He’s suddenly being backed up into the cold tiled wall behind them so harshly that he lets out an involuntary breath from the impact, but there’s no pause, just an unspoken agreement not to acknowledge what they’re doing or to stop. Alex’s hands are roaming his body as they feverishly kiss and Sebastian can feel a primal desire radiating between them.
Sebastian grips the back of Alex’s neck and the smooth skin of his muscular back. He slips his tongue into Alex’s mouth and is fueled by the low moan he gets in return. He can feel Alex hardening rapidly as their legs slot between each other, pressing him further into the wall.
There’s a blurred frenzy of trying to devour each other until Sebastian feels Alex start to fumble with his fly. There’s a huff in his ear asking for permission and Sebastian gives it instantly, trying to help him with the zipper, feeling so impossibly hard and turned on that his mind feels broken, he can’t even consider how absurd he would have found this scenario a few minutes ago.
Sebastian watches in a trance as Alex lowers himself, gazing up at him with pretty, lidded eyes before angling Sebastian’s cock towards his mouth. Sebastian is struck by how impossibly hot Alex looks and wants to keep watching, but then Alex swallows him down so far that Sebastian has to lean his head back against the tile and curse.
Sebastian manages to briefly consider the little he knows about Alex through the haze of pleasure. They ran with completely different crowds in high school and had what Sebastian was sure was a mutual mild dislike of each other. Even now, years later, they barely interact other than the occasional acknowledgement at a town festival. Sebastian never considered Alex to be anything other than completely straight, the way he and Haley are always hanging out together. But clearly Alex is no novice at this. It makes him wonder just what went on in that locker room after gridball practice every afternoon.
Sebastian shelves the question about Alex’s past and lets his mind refocus on the incredible sensation pooling in his groin. He feels a little of the hurt from earlier trying to resurface through his contentment, so he lets his mind go, lets himself imagine that the hair he’s gripping is finer, and blond.
It’s so intense when he comes it almost hurts, he’s pulsing so deep down Alex’s throat he would apologize if he wasn’t whining incoherently.
When Sebastian regains consciousness Alex is finishing on the floor with just a few erratic strokes and ragged breaths. Sebastian stares stupidly down at the mess there, in the background of his own rapidly deflating cock.
Alex stands and asks him if he’s okay. Sebastian wonders which part of their unanticipated encounter he’s specifically referencing, but then he decides he means all of it.
“Yeah. Are you?”
This should be the moment it gets weird, but Alex doesn’t look ashamed, just focused on him. Like he’s still a little worried. “Yeah,” he says finally.
Sebastian leaves the spa when Alex is in the shower. Lights a cigarette as he steps outside, and feels both better and completely bewildered.
***
It’s four days later when he sees Alex again. This time, Sebastian isn’t full of rage as he enters the spa. Just a stony intent.
Alex is lying flat on the weight bench, shirtless and flushed, his muscular body tensing from the effort of lifting the heavy bar from his chest. He registers Sebastian’s presence and sets it down with a loud, reverberating clack.
Alex sits up and leans forward to rest his elbows on his thighs for a beat, pausing to catch his breath. They meet eyes and don’t need to say anything.