Archive of Our Own

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It’s a week before Jacob’s sixth birthday, the first time he meets his mom’s new friend. 

At first he’s ecstatic. How could he not be, when he comes home to find that his mom’s car is in the driveway, and the house isn’t empty today?

Coming home from school had been something to look forward to, for a while. His mom would be there in front of the school, parked in her fancy car and pretty sunglasses, and she’d chide him for running when they had nothing to rush for. He’d laugh, and settle himself into the backseat, careful not to get his shoes on her leather seats, and she’d play her music while she took them home. 

She’d ask him about homework, about his lessons, and let him give some suggestions for dinner. And while sometimes it felt like walking a tightrope for his mother’s approval, like he had to do tricks for an audience of one just to feel alright by the time the car ride was over, he liked being with her. Just the two of them for a few hours, before Dad came home from work and joined them. It was routine, safe and familiar. 

But, that routine had fallen apart, just like everything else. Like their quiet afternoons and happy family dinners. 

“You’re going to start taking the bus,” his mom had told him a few weeks ago, shoving his lunchbox into his hands and ushering him out the door. “I’ll drive you today, but you’ll come home on the bus, not with me anymore. Do you understand?” 

“But I don’t want to take the bus,” he’d argued. He had to force himself not to cry, because his mom didn’t like it when he cried so early in the morning. “I like riding with you. And I don’t have anyone to sit with on the bus.” 

His mom had just looked at him, lips pressed in a thin line. “You need to start making friends, Jacob. It makes me look bad when you can’t.” 

So he’d started taking the bus. There was never any arguing with Mom, not really. 

And he’d tried to make friends, if only to make her a little happier with him, but he just couldn’t seem to manage it. 

He really wasn’t sure what he was doing so wrong. He smiled, like his mom taught him. He talked about himself, like his dad taught him. 

What he liked, what he was reading, what he liked to do. He’d even tried to show some of his classmates his drawings. 

His dad always told him to be himself. So he was. Always, unapologetically. But nobody seemed to like that. He didn’t know why. 

Was he interested in the wrong things, somehow? His classmates didn’t care about the books he was reading, they were all busy talking about cartoons that Jacob wasn’t allowed to watch. His mother didn’t approve of most tv programs, and his dad said they were a danger for a growing mind.

But nobody else read books like he did, so he couldn’t join in when they talked about their favorite characters 

And they snickered at his drawings, even the ones he’d thought he should be proud of. Even the one he’d drawn of everyone in his class. He doesn’t know what’s so bad about them, but he keeps them to himself after that. Tucked safely away in his cubby, or in his desk drawer at home. 

Being at school soon becomes just as lonely as being at home. He tries to pay attention to his lessons, sitting alone with his mouth shut. He likes his teacher, but every time she comes around to his desk to answer questions she gives him tight lipped smiles, something sad in her eyes that reminds him of his dad.

She doesn’t look at any of the other kids like that.

Is it… him? Does he just make people sad? His teacher? His mom? Is that why the other kids don’t like being near him? Is that why his dad looks so miserable all the time? 

He has to remind himself to keep smiling, more and more, even when he doesn’t want to. Just to try and do a little better. He doesn’t want to make anybody sad. 

The rides to school and back are just as lonely. Nobody wants to talk to him in class, so they definitely don’t want to sit next to him on the bus. He finds an empty spot somewhere in the middle, ignores the laughter around him, and tries to pass the time doodling in his little notebook. 

And home is just as quiet. His mom is usually gone by the time he gets back, and won’t be back until almost dinner, where they’ll sit quietly at the dinner table just the two of them. 

He spends his alone time drawing, instead of doing his homework. It makes him feel better. Sometimes he tries to draw the house how it used to be, full of smiles and life and color. 

Maybe if he draws it often enough, it’ll come back to life. Maybe if he gets his mom’s smile just right, he’ll see it on her face and not just on paper. Maybe if he does something right, his parents will want to come home to him. 

So of course he’s ecstatic when the bus pulls up to his house, and his mom’s fancy car is parked in the driveway. 

He’s always the last one on the bus, since his house is so much farther away than anyone else’s, so the bus driver only halfheartedly chides him when he bolts up from his seat and runs all the way off the bus. 

Jacob races for his front door, the backpack a few sizes too big for him thumping against his legs. 

Sometimes he tries to imagine that he has the same kind of bag as his dad, the same fancy leather satchel and not something so childish. He can pretend he’s doing something more important than first grade if he closes his eyes. 

He’s got his own set of keys, and he’d gotten a long lecture about the importance of not losing them because his mom didn’t have time to drive all the way home if he locked himself out. So he always keeps them in his front pocket, and he tries to resist the urge to play with them during class. 

It’s difficult, though. He can’t always sit still. He wants to move, wants to walk around during the lessons, wants to draw even when they tell him he has to put his things away and pay attention. 

He has to stand on his tiptoes to get the key in the lock, and he’s bouncing on his feet by the time he gets it open. He pushes his way inside, his keyring jingling in his little hands when he darts into the living room, barely remembering to close the door behind him. 

“Mom!” 

He knows he shouldn’t yell so loudly in the house. He just can’t help it, the excitement a physical thing bubbling in his chest, because Mom is home and they can spend the rest of the afternoon together and maybe Dad will come home on time too and– 

“Mom! Mom, are you home? I wanna show you what I–” 

He stops in his tracks, feet planted in the living room’s entry. 

There’s a stranger on the couch. All of Jacob’s joy freezes in place, turns into a lump in his jaw, the unease grabbing him by the back of the shirt and yanking him back like a warning hand. 

The man in his living room is leaned back, relaxed, legs crossed out in front of him like Jacob’s home is familiar to him. He’s got light hair, slicked back, graying at the temples. He’s wearing a suit, something like his dad might wear, but it looks cleaner. Sharper. His dad’s suits don’t always fit so well, and he barely seems to notice. 

His mom is sitting next to the stranger. She’s got her hair down, curls falling around her shoulders. Her sleeves are rolled up, her posture relaxed, and she’s leaned into the man’s space. He’s got a hand on her thigh, his thumb running circles along her leg, and she looks happy. 

She’s smiling. 

His mom is smiling. A real smile, one that sticks, that doesn’t fade the second she plasters it on. 

She doesn’t smile like that at Jacob. She doesn’t smile like that at his dad, either. So why does she look so happy now, when she isn’t even supposed to be home? 

She does startle when she hears him, but even then her smile doesn’t drop. It just tightens a little. The stranger doesn’t move, either, his hand still resting comfortable on her upper thigh. 

Jacob feels strange. He doesn’t know why.

“Jacob,” his mom says, and she sounds a little breathless. He stares at her with big eyes. “I didn’t- you got home early today?” 

Jacob wrinkles his nose. “No.”

Because the bus drops him off at the same time every single day, and right now is no different. She’s just never here to see it. 

“I’m sorry,” his mom says, but she isn’t talking to him. Her eyes are back on the stranger, and she’s still smiling. Her hand squeezes his wrist, and he pulls away from her thigh. “I lost track of time.” 

“That’s alright.” The man stands, smooths down his suit. He’s taller than his dad, and Jacob’s eyes track him nervously. “I think it’s past time we met, anyway.” 

He crosses the distance of the living room in two easy strides, stopping when he’s standing right over Jacob. He’s smiling too, his grin crinkling under his eyes, like it’s a well worn, practiced thing. 

Jacob tries to think about his dad, how he might greet someone, how he might stand tall and shake their hand and win them over. He squares his little shoulders and tilts his chin back, forcing himself to make eye contact.

But the stranger kneels down to his level, dropping to one knee on his mom’s plush carpet. He holds out a hand, and although Jacob can only wrap his own around two of the man’s fingers, he accepts the handshake anyway. 

“Hey, Jake,” the man says. His hands are soft. “You can call me George.” 

George looks familiar, Jacob thinks, but he can’t place exactly where. That strange, uneasy feeling is back, but he still doesn’t understand it either. George seems nice, and his mom is in a good mood, so what is there to feel strange about? 

“It’s Jacob,” Jacob says, and pulls his hand back. He wants to stuff them into his pockets, curl his shoulders, but he knows he’ll be reprimanded for bad posture if he does. “Not Jake.”

George laughs, a barking sound, and straightens back up to his full height. Jacob has to look straight up to see him, but he thinks he likes it better like that. He’d been too close. 

“You got it,” he says, and looks over his shoulder to Jacob’s mom. “He’s got a lot more fire than his dad, doesn’t he?” 

For the first time, his mom’s smile falters. “He’s very opinionated.” 

“I’ll say,” George says. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Jacob.” 

Jacob doesn’t say anything back. He doesn’t know if it’s nice to meet George, because he has no idea who Goerge is, or why he’s in his house. He looks to his mom instead, frowning, for some kind of answer. 

She sighs, and her smile has all but vanished now. She looks how she normally does, carefully put together, expressionless, while she stands up and smooths down the wrinkles of her dress and fixes her hair.

“George is a good friend of mine,” she says, and Jacob wonders if George is why she’s been gone so much. He’s never been allowed to meet her friends before. 

Every time he’d asked, said that he’d behave and sit quiet if he got to tag along, she’d brushed him off and ushered him to bed. 

“Say goodbye,” his mom says. “He was just leaving.” 

“Oh,” Jacob says. He doesn’t know if he should be disappointed or not. On one hand, he doesn’t want a stranger in his house. But on the other hand, it’s nice that everything isn’t so quiet. “He doesn’t want to stay for dinner?”

George laughs again, that same booming sound, and Jacob doesn’t know what’s so funny. “I wouldn’t want to intrude. Your dad should be home soon, right?” 

“George,” Jacob’s mom says, a little sharp. It’s the same tone she uses when Jacob is in trouble. “Go get your coat.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” George is grinning, and there’s a sparkle in his mom’s eyes that he’s never seen before. He wonders why his parents don’t smile at each other like this. “I’ll see you around, Jake.” 

Jacob decides he doesn’t like George all that much. 

“Jacob,” his mom says, standing with her arms crossed in front of the couch. “Go up to your room, please. I’ll call you for dinner.” 

Jacob feels that familiar, lonely ache in his stomach. He’d just gotten home. He wanted to be with his mom. He’d even take being with her while she smiled at someone else. 

“But–” 

“Now, Jacob,” she says, already following George towards the front door. “Don’t make me ask you again.” 

He does what he’s told. He always does exactly what he’s told, because if he argues it'll just make things worse. His mom had already stopped looking so happy the moment he’d walked in the door. 

He can behave, and stay out of the way. Maybe that will help. 

But he does watch from his bedroom window. It overlooks the front of the house, the gravel driveway, the car parked in its usual spot. 

And he watches his mom and George walk there together, and he sees the way their fingers are brushing. They pause in front of the car, and he touches her waist, his big hand curling over her hip, and she’s smiling again. 

She seems to be driving him home, because they both get into the car, his mom behind the wheel, and take off down the road. His hand is back on her thigh, he can see it through the rolled down windows. Only for a moment before they’re gone, and he’s alone in the house again,

Jacob doesn’t know what they’re doing. He doesn't know why George is touching his mom like that, and he doesn’t know why it seems to be the one thing in the world that can make his mom happy. 

He doesn’t know what it means to touch someone like that. Hands on thighs, on waists, moving gently. He’d never seen it before. He really hadn’t ever seen his mom look so relaxed. Is that the only way to do it? 

He wants to do that. He wants to make people smile like that. 

He just doesn’t know what it means yet. 

It’s confusing, and he can’t stop thinking about it, and it makes him feel small and scared and lost. So he does the only thing he knows how to do, when the world feels too big for him. The one thing that makes everything better. 

He asks his dad, the next time he has the privilege of seeing him. 

“How come Mom only looks happy when she’s with her friend?” 

Sometimes, when Jacob has managed to stay awake and his dad gets home a little earlier, he’ll stop by Jacob’s room and wish him a quiet goodnight. On special days, like this, he’ll linger for a minute and tuck Jacob properly into bed, pet his head and tell him a little about his day. 

It’s rare, but it’s what Jacob looks forward to the most. He preens under it, desperate for the attention, for those precious extra moments they can spend together. 

He braves his question during one of those nights, forcing it out while his dad pulls the blankets up around his shoulders. He looks so tired, his face weary and his calloused hands a little unsteady when they work. 

But he freezes when Jacob speaks. His eyes dart up to meet his, a frown tugging at his lips. 

“What friend?” His voice is always quiet, like he doesn’t have enough air for his own words. “Your mother doesn’t have any friends.” 

“Uh huh,” Jacob argues, frowning back at him. “She does too. I met him the other day. He shook my hand. His name’s George.” 

He does that thing again. His moment of quiet, of retreating back into his own thoughts. But it seems different this time, like he can’t quite make his face go blank. He can’t hide the way his brow furrows and something heavy settles over his shoulders. 

“You met him here? At the house?” 

His frown deepens when Jacob nods. He looks like he’s debating something, chewing on his lip, and Jacob is almost ready to take the whole thing back before he speaks again. “Will you tell me about it?” 

And Jacob, just desperate to keep his dad in his room a little longer, does what he’s told. 

He tells his dad about coming home, about seeing his mom smile, about the way she’d lit up and leaned into George’s space. About the way his hand had been on her thigh, and she hadn’t moved away, and he’d never seen anyone touch Mom like that before. 

He tells him they’d gotten into her car and driven away, and she hadn’t come back until late. Too late for dinner, and Jacob had to fend for himself and find snacks in the fridge, and how he’d gone to bed hungry, waiting up for someone to come home and tuck him in. 

He doesn't mention neither of them had, before he’d fallen asleep. 

His dad doesn’t ask about any of that. He doesn’t ask about Jacob’s dinner, or his bedtime, or if anyone had been waiting for him at breakfast to make up for it. And he doesn’t ask anymore questions about George. 

He doesn’t ask anything at all. 

He stands up, slowly, his hand lingering on Jacob’s sheets for a moment before it pulls away too. Jacob feels cold, despite the blankets wrapped around him.  

“It’s good that your mother has someone who can make her smile,” he says. “God knows she needs it.” 

Jacob doesn’t understand. He never understands. 

“Why doesn’t she smile like that with us?” Jacob asks. Maybe his dad knows. Maybe his dad will tell him what he’s doing wrong, and they can fix it together. “Why can’t we make her happy?” 

“I don’t know, Jacob,” his dad tells him. “Maybe some people just aren’t built for it.” 

He turns on Jacob’s nightlight and leaves him there, tucked in bed. Jacob doesn’t sleep much that night, and he nearly falls asleep at school the next day. 

////

Jacob had originally planned on giving Seb’s another week. Two, max. 

He’d had his fun, but all wells ran dry sooner or later. He had no plans on letting Wilder actually kick him out, so long as he didn’t get security involved, but he knew he was teetering on the edge of overstaying his welcome. 

So eventually, he’d stop getting lucky. He’d stop finding entertainment here, the girls would start to repeat, the music would get old, and he’d pack it up and stake his claim somewhere else. 

Except, for some reason, he kind of likes it here. He likes the atmosphere. He likes the people. He’s even starting to like the music. 

He has no idea why. He shouldn’t like anything about this place. The music gets loud, and the crowd gets invested, and Jacob sometimes has to work twice as hard to keep his date’s attention strictly on him. He’s pretty sure Wilder has been amping up the performances every time he sees him shoot his shot. 

Not that it’s ever stopped him from getting what he came here for, but it’s still obnoxious. 

Because Sebastian Wilder is obnoxious. 

Jacob has met plenty of stuck up pretentious pricks in his day, he went to business school for four years, but Wilder might take the fucking cake. 

“So, what do you even do?” 

Their terse agreement had seemed to hinge on Jacob staying as far away from the stage and the bar owner as possible, and he’d been more than willing to oblige for as long as he chose to stick around. 

And yet, Wilder couldn’t seem to help himself. For someone who hated him so much, he sure did love to meander over to talk Jacob’s ear off about all the things he was doing wrong. 

One day he wasn’t appreciating the music properly, one day he wasn't ordering the right drink, one day he was smiling at a woman in a way that made him look creepy, which he’d proven wrong by getting her in bed within the hour. There was always something. 

He’s a distraction, is what he is. Maybe that’s what he’s trying to be. Trying to give Jacob a taste of his own medicine, to put one more obstacle in the road, hoping he’ll get fed up and leave for good on his own. 

Jacob’s never been one to give in, though. He doesn’t lose the games he plays. If anything, he’s just going to stay longer now out of spite.  

Wilder has settled himself at the bar next to Jacob for a drink while the band takes a break, and the chatter of the club takes over. The stage is never completely silent, even for these few moments, someone always lingering by the drums or the bass, coming and going like they can't help but make music. 

He's sure Wilder hand picks all his players, with how anal he seems to be about the entire thing. 

Jacob barely even registers the question, a little busy with making eyes at a red head sitting in the corner booth. She’s wearing a pale pink dress that hugs her upper thigh, and he’s having a little difficulty keeping eye contact. 

“What?” 

“What do you do?” Sebastian repeats, and Jacob has to fight not to look annoyed when he leans a little closer into his space, effectively blocking his view. Jesus Christ this fucking guy. 

“What do you care?” Jacob asks, turning to him with what he hopes is an easy smile. “The money’s green, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, it’s green alright,” Wilder says. “My bartenders say you tip two hundred every night, no matter what the tab is. So what exactly is it that lets you sit on your ass and throw money away like it won’t run out?” 

Obnoxious and fucking nosy. 

It’s a question he’s used to dodging, at the very least. It’s level one bar talk, something girls ask to be polite, and are happily, easily diverted from. 

“Nothing exciting,” he says, a practiced line. “I’ve got a lot of free time.” 

Sebastian doesn’t take the out. “That’s not an answer. Is it drugs? Is that why you’re being cagey?” 

“What? Jesus. No.” 

“I’ve seen the car you drive,” Sebastian says, and Jacob tries to figure out when he could have possibly seen him come or go. “Looks like drug money to me.” 

“Will you stop saying that?” He knows he’s being fucked with. He’s not stupid. But Sebastian is just annoying enough to slither right past all of Jacob’s defenses, and it’s fucking infuriating. “It’s not- it’s nothing. I don’t do anything.” 

Sebastian’s face twists, like he’s tasted something sour. But he’s still staring Jacob down like he’s some kind of puzzle he has to solve. Or like Jacob is a sheet of music, propped up on his piano, and he can’t stop until the song is complete. 

“Wow,” he says. “Are you seriously incapable of answering a single question about yourself? Nobody here knows anything about you, you know. It’s creepy.” 

“I don’t do anything,” Jacob says again, just to get him to stop talking. “I don’t have a job.” 

It’s not really something he likes to admit out loud. Being mysteriously rich is a lot more appealing than being unemployed and lucky. 

He sees the exact moment Sebastian, the hard working owner of his own bar, actually debates killing Jacob with his bare hands. 

But he must be trying to be somewhat civil. Maybe because it’s obvious the bartender is watching their banter like it’s his favorite show, and Sebastian doesn’t want to look like the aggressor. 

“All that money and you don’t have to work?” He asks, and sounds suitably annoyed around his curiosity. “What’s your secret?”  

Jacob hadn’t thought he had any issues talking about himself. The only reason he doesn’t is because it’s pointless, most of the time. The girls don’t care, he rarely has anything substantial to offer the conversation, and they’re almost always more interesting. 

But it’s like pulling his own teeth out, trying to untangle the truth from his lungs and rip it out. 

“My dad,” he says, and wonders why he’s even talking to Wilder in the first place. “He owned a big tech company. You do know what technology is, right? I know this place is a little old fashioned but–”

“Jazz isn’t old fashioned,” Sebastian says. He’ll always take the bait when it comes to his music. “That just means you don’t know anything about it. Jazz is- it’s constantly evolving. It’s different every single night. Surely even you can realize that, you’re here all the damn time.” 

Jacob had. He wasn’t here for the music, but it was hard to ignore. Especially when Sebastian was the one playing his heart out, night after night. Even the repeat songs Jacob had learned to recognize always switched things up, a new note or a different solo.

Every person on stage seemed to have a different idea of what the song meant, where it came from, what they let out into the world when they played. And it was captivating every time. 

But even so, it was always like they were all following Wilder’s lead. Like the passion that flowed from his fingers seeped out of his piano and infected the rest of the stage, the rest of the club. No wonder people kept coming back. No wonder they were so entranced. Even Jacob wasn’t immune to the effect. 

Not that he’d ever tell Sebastian that. 

“Not really,” he lies. “It all kind of sounds the same to me.” 

Seb’s face drops, and his scowl deepens. The crease between his brow is back, and Jacob has half a mind to tell him his face is going to get stuck that way if he keeps it up. 

“Have you ever heard of smiling?” Jacob asks, despite his better judgement. “It’s good for you, you should try it sometime.”

“Smiling gives you wrinkles,” Sebastian says. “Shouldn’t you know that with whatever sixteen step skincare routine you rich people do?” 

“It’s ten steps, actually. It balances out, so I’m allowed to smile. Unlike someone.” 

“I smile plenty,” Sebastian says, frowning. “Coincidentally, it just always happens to be when you’re not here.”  

“Imagine that,” Jacob says. “How convenient.” 

He’d like to say he can’t imagine it, the idea of Sebastian looking anything close to happy, but it’s just not true. He’s seen him on stage. 

“So, your job is to look pretty and bother me all night?” Sebastian asks, apparently recovered from his momentary distraction enough to go back to pestering Jacob about his personal life. “Must be nice.” 

“It is,” Jacob says, and he’s sure he sounds like he means it. “I mean, it was a lot easier at some of the other bars. No owners harassing me just for enjoying the show.”

“Right,” Sebastian says. “Maybe you should go back to them.” 

“I’m good,” Jacob says. “Like I said, I’m enjoying the show.” 

“Oh, please. Don’t pretend like you’ve ever paid attention to my show. You’re a distraction for a reason, Palmer.” 

Well, Jacob hadn’t been talking about the show on stage. 

He knows it might be unhealthy, that he shouldn’t be seeking this out, but he can’t help but be entertained by his arguments with Wilder. The way it’s so damn easy to rile him up, push his buttons, dance on the edge of the very clear line drawn in the sand. 

And it’s not like Wilder doesn’t hit back twice as hard. More often than not, Jacob has to take a few minutes to cool off before he tries his hand at whoever has caught his eye. 

The guy is an entitled prick, and Jacob doesn’t think he’s ever spent this much time being so consistently pissed off. 

People don’t usually get to him like this. They don’t usually try. For all his attitude problems, he tends to get along with the people he meets. Good looks and effortless charm doesn’t just get girls into his bed. 

So maybe that’s part of it. It’s a change of pace. Maybe not a good change of pace, but a change nonetheless. And that’s what he’d been looking for, hadn’t it? 

He knows he could never explain it to anyone. How does he say it without sounding like an entitled asshole? That sometimes it's exhausting, the way everything is so easy now. 

What he wants, he gets. Who he wants, he gets. If he wants people to like him, people like him. If he wants to be seen as a thoughtless pretty face that’s only good for a fun time, that’s what he’ll make sure they see. He barely has to lift a finger. 

He’s perfected the script, the routine, the look. It had taken a little bit of stumbling to get back in the swing of things after Hannah, but not much. 

And he’s lucky. He likes it, he wants it, and he doesn’t have to work very hard for it. He’s good at this, and that’s something most men would kill for. The perfect, easy to manage playboy. 

But it makes that achey, empty feeling grow every time a pretty girl looks at him, and her eyes glaze over before he’s even said more than two words. 

He tries not to think about how pathetic that makes him. 

Fighting with Wilder makes it a little easier to ignore. At least he’s kept on his toes. At least being hated is something new, something besides being blindly desired for something he’s faking.

Arguments and sex. That’s all he’s got. He’ll live with that.

Jacob smirks. “Did you call me pretty?” 

“Oh my god,” Wilder scoffs. “Fuck off.” 

“Hey, keep that up and maybe I’ll start paying attention," Jacob says, resting his chin in his palm and leaning forward. “Write a song about me, I’d be flattered.”

Sebastian pulls a face like the thought of writing a song for Jacob is making him physically ill. “I’d like to keep my audience, thanks.”

Jacob considers pushing the matter for no real reason other than the sheer entertainment of it, but then considers the fact that he doesn’t know enough about jazz to be able to recognize a Wilder original. 

“Do you write your own music?” Jacob asks, since apparently he’s going to be stuck here having this conversation either way. “Or have we just been listening to the greatest hits of the 1900s every night?” 

“I write,” Sebastian snaps, with more vitriol than Jacob had been expecting. “This is a modern jazz club, Palmer. We play everything, including some of my old work. I’ve said that on stage. You’d know if you were paying attention.” 

“We’ve already established I’m not,” Jacob says. “Your old stuff? What’s wrong with your new stuff?” 

“There isn’t any new stuff,” Sebastian says, and then immediately looks like he regrets it. “I don’t write anymore.” 

Well. If Wilder can be nosy, so can Jacob. 

“Why not?” 

Sebastian scowls, and glares, like he wasn’t the one who came right up to Jacob and started prying in his business in the first place. “I don’t have time. I’m busy.” 

“Busy doing what?” Jacob asks. “Playing the piano? You’re too busy playing jazz music to write jazz music?” 

“I don’t want to hear anything from you about not being busy,” Sebastian says. “Can’t you go work for your dad, or something? Carry on the family legacy or whatever?” 

Jacob snorts into his drink, disgusted at the thought, and dutifully ignores the flare of pain in his chest. “God, no. I’m right where I want to be.” 

He’s sure that he could. On paper, he still technically has a claim to the company. He’d have plenty of sway if he decided to step back into that world. And his stepdad had sent him off to business school, so he has his degree. He still has some connections, even if it’s been a while since he’d picked up the phone. If he wanted a job, he’s certain he could have one by next week. 

But he thinks it might kill him. 

He thinks about soulless, colorless corporate buildings. Windowless offices. Blank faces and empty words and people who don’t care about him, just the money he'll produce, just what he can offer. 

It’s exactly like his life now, if he thinks about it too hard. But at least this life is a little more fun. At least he won’t be a mirror image of his father, so long as he’s lonely in a different way. 

“Yeah?” Wilder is looking at him a little funny. It’s an odd look, and Jacob thinks it feels familiar. He brushes it off. “And where’s that? Up my ass? Harassing me and my customers?” 

“Yep,” Jacob says. “And if I recall, you came up to me. I was minding my business.” 

“Whatever,” Sebastian says, quiet and bitter under his breath. He finishes his drink, that ever present scowl still etched across his face, and stands up from his barstool. His collar is slightly askew, and Jacob briefly wonders if he should fix it for him. “Are you almost done?” 

Jacob glances back to where he’d spotted the red head, and frowns when he finds her distracted by a younger looking guy, all fake smiles and too much chatter. 

He thinks he could still probably steal her away, he’s definitely better dressed than anyone here, but it might be easier to just cast his net somewhere else. He’s suddenly lost the energy to look for a challenge. Thinking about his dad tends to do that to him. 

“Just about,” Jacob says, refusing to give Sebastian the satisfaction of looking discouraged. “You know, I would have been out of here faster if you hadn’t distracted me.” 

“Oh, I distracted you?” Sebastian drawls. Smug and satisfied. “Imagine that.” 

He makes his way back to the stage where he belongs, and Jacob stays near the bar until he finds another pretty thing to take home, and they don’t talk again until Jacob shows back up a few days later to do it all over again. 

And that’s how it goes. Jacob shows up when he’s in the mood, and he sees Sebastian roll his eyes and clench his jaw on stage all the way from the front door, and it puts him in a great mood for the rest of the night. He’s just so easy to piss off. 

It’s clear the rest of the club has started to take notice of the routine. He catches the other band members sharing little knowing smirks behind Sebastian’s back when Jacob makes his appearances, like they’re amused by their boss’s souring mood. 

He can’t really blame them. He’s plenty amused himself, even if he usually ends up just as angry.

Seb’s has two bartenders, and by now both of them have learned to recognize him too. They don’t seem to hate him nearly as much as Wilder, probably because Jacob’s generous tips go right in their pockets, and they’ve started pouring his usual before he even sits down at the bar. 

There’s even a few regulars who hang around the stage that don’t seem to mind him, greeting with a quiet nod or a smile before they turn their attention back to dissecting whatever Sebastian is doing on the piano that night.  

It’s… nice, he can admit that. If it weren’t for Wilder and his attitude, Jacob might actually feel welcome here. 

He’d spent an unhealthy amount of time at the old bar, he knows. But he’d kept quiet enough until he had his eyes on a girl that nobody really acknowledged him. The bartender was nice enough, but she’d given up on conversation when he’d politely pretended not to pick up on her advances. 

He’ll still never fuck the bartender. It’s a hard rule. He’d really prefer if nobody spat in his drink.

Wilder doesn’t always come to bother him, but it happens more often than not. It’s like he can’t resist it, like he’s addicted to making his bad moods worse. And honestly, Jacob has stopped minding it so much. 

He’d definitely prefer to be left alone, or at least make conversation with someone who was a little bit less of a complete douche, but entertainment is still entertainment. 

It’s routine. Just another routine. He doesn’t think much about his feelings on the matter at all until– 

"What the hell are you doing?"

Jacob looks up, a little annoyed at the break in his concentration before reality catches back up to him, and his hands go still.

He’s at his usual spot at the bar, elbows resting on the polished counter. Sebastian sounds annoyed, like he always does, and Jacob’s ears feel warm when he realizes he must have zoned out, lost somewhere else entirely. 

“Palmer?” Sebastian says, still irritated but maybe less so now. “What are you drawing?” 

Drawing? 

Jacob glances down, a little off kilter, and his stomach drops. There’s a black pen in his hand, snatched from where another patron had discarded it on the bar after signing their bill. 

He remembers fidgeting with it, directing all his restless energy to his hands while Sebastian rambled about whatever it was he was upset about today, but at some point he must have uncapped it, and brought the tip to the folded up napkin beside his empty glass. 

He’s still doing it, even with no memory of starting the sketch in the first place, left hand moving on autopilot, tracing black lines on the delicate paper. They're curving, forming the shape of a sharp jawline and slender neck and—

He quickly puts the pen down and glares up at Sebastian. He moves his hand to rest over the napkin, blocking the incomplete sketch from view.

He feels an itch under his skin, restless energy sizzling, burning under his fingertips, and he makes himself ignore it.

Wilder is behind the bar tonight, has been for the last hour or so. It’s something he does sometimes on slower nights, while the rest of the band finishes up and the crowd thins, everything quieting down into a gentle hum. 

“Hey, look at you,” Jacob had said, the first time he’d seen Sebastian roll his sleeves up and start pouring drinks.“Hard at work for once?” 

“Go fuck yourself,” Sebastian had said in return. “Like you’d know anything.” 

Now, Sebastian is looking at him funny again. The same look from before, and it tugs at something in the back of Jacob’s mind. He just can’t put his finger on what it means. 

Wilder’s still not smiling, but he’s not scowling as much as he usually is either. He glances down at the napkin, hidden under Jacob’s palm, and tilts his head. 

He looks good tonight, Jacob thinks. It’s an unwanted thought, rising unprompted from the recesses of his mind, but it’s there nonetheless. 

He’s a little disheveled, as he often is when he’s not putting himself on stage. He’s ditched his suit jacket, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a strand of hair falling between his eyes. His collar is skewed again, and Jacob’s eyes are glued to the exposed skin of his long neck, his sharp jawline–

Oh. 

Yeah, he needs to go. 

“Hey, don’t let me distract you barkeep,” Jacob says. “Those glasses need polishing. Chop chop!” 

Wilder, again, doesn’t take the bait. The one time Jacob actually needs him to. “What were you drawing?” 

“I wasn’t drawing.” 

It’s too quick, too defensive. Nothing like how Jacob makes himself, carefully composed during their banter, always on top, always infuriatingly calm in the face of Sebastian’s ire. It’s too telling, the way his hand is curled around the bunched up napkin. The way he’d dropped the pen like a criminal caught with the murder weapon, red handed. 

Sebastian narrows in on all of it, and Jacob swears he sees him almost smile, delighted to have found a weakness. 

“Come on,” Wilder says, leaning forward. “What is it?” 

Jacob’s mouth feels dry. It has nothing to do with how he can see Wilder’s collarbone through his open collar. “It’s nothing.”

“Clearly not,” Sebastian insists, because the pushy asshole can’t ever let anything go. “What, is it me? Is that what’s got you all embarrassed?” 

He’s clearly joking. It so obviously doesn’t fucking matter, and Jacob should laugh and roll his eyes and tell Wilder to fuck off. 

He should. 

Just like he should have told Hannah the truth. He should have smiled and stayed calm and been honest because this doesn’t matter. God, it doesn’t matter, it’s never mattered. It’s just pen and paper. It’s just pen and paper. 

Jacob’s vision tunnels, and he can’t feel his hands. He stands up from the stool, beyond grateful that his knees don’t wobble, and ignores Sebastian’s incredulous look. 

“I have to go,” he says, and clears his throat when it comes out a little strained. “I’m just- I’m gonna head out. Got a thing.” 

“You’re… heading out,” Wilder says, like he needs to sound out the concept. “Right now? Alone?” 

He’d never left Seb’s alone before. And he’s positive he’ll never hear the end of it for doing it now. But right now he doesn’t care. He just needs to go. 

“What, you want me to take you home?” Jacob says, forcing the words through clenching teeth, smile so strained it’s making his face ache. “Buy me a drink first, geez.” 

He sounds breathless. His card is already on the tab, thank god, because he doesn’t have time to fish out his wallet. He grabs the napkin and crumples it into a ball. His hands shake when he shoves it into his pocket. 

Sebastian is watching him, dumbfounded. He looks like he doesn’t know whether he should be annoyed or not. “What the fuck is your problem right now?” 

“I don’t have a problem,” Jacob says, and turns away without looking back. “Night, Wilder.” 

He’s glad the bar is almost empty by now, a slow quiet night. There’s nobody to watch him leave like he’s being pursued. Nobody except the owner. 

He makes it to his McLaren parked right outside in his usual spot, locks the doors, and sits with his hands clutching the steering wheel without making a move to turn the engine on. He needs a minute. Just a minute. 

His chest feels tight and his heart is slamming against his ribs, making him hot and dizzy and nauseous all at once, and he feels like a child when he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to count out the breaths he forces through his nose. 

Jacob’s first panic attack had happened when he was seven, standing in his father’s study for the last time, but they hadn’t become a regular thing until he’d turned nine. 

There had been that rough patch, between the ages of nine and eleven, where he’d had them nearly every day. At home in bed, at the dinner table, in the school bathroom. He’d learned to manage them on his own, he’d had to, but nobody had actually offered any kind of help until he was almost twelve and shipped off to boarding school.

He doesn’t get them nearly as often anymore. But fuck, they’re still just as bad when he does. 

Every time. They still feel just as world ending as they did when he was ten. 

And they’re always over fucking nothing. They hit when he’s alone in his house, they hit when he’s on a damn walk, and apparently they hit when someone he doesn’t even like asks him what he’d been fucking doodling. 

Like his brain is just broken, so damaged beyond repair, and it’s keen to remind him the second he stops pretending. 

He can’t breathe, he still can’t breathe and his chest aches, heavy with it, crushed under the panic. Waves and waves of paralyzing fear, his body tense like he needs to brace for a blow, brace for the world to end, brace to lose it all over again. 

He doesn’t know why he’s like this. He knows it’ll pass, he knows it’ll be okay, but in the moment it feels like it never will. It feels like he’s going to die. 

His eyes are wet, and he’s hyperventilating with no end in sight. He drops his forehead to his steering wheel and tries to will it all away. Tries to breathe, tries to remember he’s alive, tries to make it all stop. 

He thinks about Hannah. He thinks about the way she’d held his face, the way she’d talked him through it, holding him together until he’d remembered how to do it himself. It had been the first time anyone had ever sat with him through one of his attacks. 

She’d been gentle, she’d been kind, and as humiliated as he’d been he’d never once felt judged by her. Like she understood, like it was okay, like she’d love him for a little while longer regardless. 

For one overwhelming moment, he thinks about calling her. For just a moment, he wants her so badly. More than anything. He aches for it, for a hand in his, for a chest to rest his head on, for someone, anyone, to hold him and tell him to breathe. That it’ll be okay. That he’s okay. 

He thinks she would, if he asked. He wouldn’t even have to beg. 

Of course she would, for a friend. Of course she would, because Hannah was so unspeakably good. Too good for him. 

He doesn’t deserve her. He hadn’t then, and he sure as hell doesn’t now. It would only make it all worse in the long run, anyway. To have her close for a few moments, only to be forced to let go all over again. 

So he doesn’t call her. And he doesn’t call anyone else, because he doesn’t have anyone else. There’s no one. He’d made sure of that.

So he has a panic attack alone in his car, in front of the jazz club, windows tinted so nobody can see inside. It’s a new low. 

When it passes, and he can take a breath again, he doesn't feel any better. His face is wet, and his hands are shaking, but he wants to go home. So he breathes in, and out, again and again, dries his eyes, and pulls his car out of the parking lot. 

When he gets home to his empty house, he just feels lost and lonely and exhausted. His stomach reminds him he hasn’t eaten all day, and he hesitates in the kitchen doorway. 

He ends up going to bed instead. He’ll eat tomorrow. 

Or he won’t. It’s not like anyone will notice. 

He goes back to Seb’s two days later, with a fresh smile and a new suit. He orders food at the bar for the first time, because he hadn’t been able to stomach anything else. 

Nothing changes. Wilder makes his way over for a few minutes at some point, words sharp and scowl in place, and Jacob finds some comfort in that, even if they both walk away from the conversation irritated. 

Sebastian doesn’t bring up the drawing, or Jacob’s hasty retreat. 

He’s glad for that. It’s better that way. 

////

Jacob is seven years old. 

He’s seven years old, and he’s determined to have the best morning of his life. He’s been given a once in a lifetime opportunity, and he swears he’s going to see his dad smile today. 

It’s a Sunday morning, and it’s quiet in the big house. His mom had gone out early again, but for the first time in weeks his dad was staying home today. He’d said the night before that he’d made some arrangements, and he’d have some time off work for a bit.

He’d been quiet, and he’d excused himself soon after, but Jacob had been elated anyway. They could have a day together. He could make him happy before he was too busy for Jacob again. 

Things could get better, as long as Jacob didn’t blow this. 

He’d taught himself how to make eggs recently. His mom kept forgetting to cook breakfast, or maybe she’d just stopped worrying about it so much, so he’d carefully learned how to work the stove, and reach the pans, and crack the eggs just right. It had taken some time, but he’d gotten good at it. 

He makes a plate of eggs and toast with butter, places it at the head of the table in his dad’s vacant spot, and hurries upstairs to wake him. 

He goes to knock on his parent’s bedroom door- only to pause with his little fist hovering in the air when he realizes it's already open, sunlight filtering in from the big window, curtains spread. 

He peers inside, taking in the spotless room. The bed is made up nice and neat, pillows propped up exactly how his mom likes, the blankets folded. His dad must already be awake, then. He hadn’t come downstairs, which meant he’d retreated up to his study, despite the day off. 

Maybe he’s painting. Maybe they can paint together again today. 

The thought is enough to renew his excitement, and he takes the stairs two at a time despite the no running rule in the house. He makes it to the study door, big and daunting, and he still feels like he’s somewhere he’s not supposed to be when he raises his hand and knocks twice. 

He waits, and waits some more, and frowns when there’s no answer. He knows his dad gets busy, even when he should be resting, but he always calls through the door with permission to enter, or a distracted demand for privacy. 

Jacob knocks again, waits, and shifts nervously on his feet when the silence stretches on. 

“Dad?” He calls. His voice comes out small. “Dad?” 

He’s not supposed to go inside without permission. He knows that, he’s always known that. He’d known the study was off limits before he’d known how to walk. It was his dad’s space. His only space, locked away from the world. 

But Jacob's stomach suddenly hurts, and his throat feels tight, and he wants his dad. He needs to see his dad right now. 

So he stretches up on his tiptoes, grabs the brass doorhandle, and pushes his way inside. 

The study is dark. So dark Jacob almost can’t see anything, and he keeps the door open to let the sunlight in the hallway pour inside. 

The clutter on the desk is gone. It’s the first thing Jacob notices. His dad’s desk is completely cleared, cleaned, no papers or folders or books in sight. It feels wrong, eerie. The big leather chair is tucked in, vacant. 

The only thing he can see is something he doesn’t recognize. A small orange bottle. He’s never seen it before. 

There’s a lump on the couch on the other side of the room, tucked against the shadows along the wall. He squints, and he can just make out the shape of his dad stretched out across the cushions, sound asleep, silent. 

He’s dressed in one of his suits, which is strange. His back is to the door, laying on his side, arms folded underneath him. He must have been exhausted, looking for somewhere quiet to nap. 

Jacob should let him sleep, even if his food is going to go cold. He won’t be mad at him for missing a meal, not like Mom used to when she’d still cared about family meals. It’s okay if he needs to rest. 

But he’s frozen to the spot. The room is going fuzzy around him. 

“Dad?” He calls again, a little louder than he had before. “Dad, wake up. I made breakfast, you gotta come downstairs.” 

His dad doesn’t move. 

The house is so, so quiet. 

“Dad,” he says, even louder this time. He takes a breath, tries to be brave, and steps towards the couch. “Dad, wake up.” 

He doesn’t wake up. 

Something is wrong. Something is wrong. 

“Dad!” 

He tries to scream, but he doesn’t have the air for it. 

He can’t breathe. For the first time, Jacob can’t breathe. His throat is tight and his eyes are hot and wet and all he can do is stand in the middle of the study and cry. 

It’s the first time it happens to him, but it’s not the last. Gripped by that paralyzing fear, cold and crushing, his breaths coming out in panicked, heaving gasps and sobs. 

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He doesn’t know why he’s so scared. He doesn’t know why his dad won’t wake up. 

Something is wrong. Something is wrong wrong wong– 

////

Something is wrong. 

Jacob knows something is wrong, he just… he can’t focus long enough to figure out exactly what it is. Maybe that’s it. Why can’t he string a thought together?

He makes himself focus, makes himself come back to his body. It takes more effort than it should, like his own awareness is slipping through his fingers like sand, like he’s trying to go somewhere else, far far away. 

“Don’t you think that’s interesting?” 

The voice makes him startle, just inches from his face, and it takes him a second to remember that he’s with someone. Some… guy. He can’t remember his name. It’s something boring, something that had gone in one ear and out the other. 

He’d been talking about something, clearly, and he wanted Jacob’s opinion on it. Because they were having a conversation. Right. 

He opens his mouth to agree, yeah sure, so interesting, only to find that he can’t. His tongue feels like cement in his mouth, his jaw slack and heavy. 

He feels the first prickles of panic down his spine, but even that feels far away. Like he’s aware of it, but can’t focus long enough to actually experience it. 

That might be nice, if it wasn’t so terrifying. 

He tries to focus on the guy’s face, tries to remember what the hell it was they’d been talking about. He’s watching Jacob closely, like he’s looking for something specific. He doesn’t seem offended at the lack of response to his question. 

He smiles, like he’s found exactly what he’s looking for. 

“Woah, hey,” he says. “You don’t look so good.” 

It takes all of Jacob’s concentration to swallow, his mouth dry, and then even more to force words past his lips, breathy and slurred. 

“M’ fine,” he manages, barely. He doesn’t recognize his own voice. “M’ okay. Good.” 

“Good,” the guy echoes, and he really is way too close. They’re sitting on the same side of one of the plush leather booths, legs pressed together. His arm is slung over the top, inches from Jacob’s shoulders. “You about ready to go?” 

Jacob’s mind is blank. It’s running a thousand miles an hour, desperately trying to keep up, but he can’t focus on any of it. 

He swallows again. “Go wh’re?” 

The guy laughs, like Jacob had said something hysterical, like he’s adorable and not confused. It’s a familiar laugh, something fake and charming Jacob has used on countless girls. They’re just usually sober enough to actually appreciate it. 

Except… no, he’s not drunk. He wouldn’t get drunk, he never gets drunk in public. It’s a bad look, and he doesn’t usually like the person he becomes when he’s too wasted to hold back. 

He’s not drunk. He’s had two drinks tonight. He’d ordered his usual, because the bartenders he knew were apparently both off tonight, someone new standing in. It had tasted fine, and he’d sent a cheers to Wilder while he glared from his usual spot on stage. 

And then he’d had… whatever cocktail this guy had insisted on buying for him. 

That’s… yeah, that’s right. He’d been entertaining this guy, who apparently had seen Jacob from across the bar and couldn’t take his eyes off him. 

It was a cheesy, predictable line. And Jacob knows it's a line because it’s a line he’s used, but he'd been so shocked at a guy so boldly coming up to him, turning the tables, that he hadn’t been able to turn him down. 

And he was cute. Cute enough to get Jacob’s guard down a little, with dark hair, a frankly scandalously unbuttoned shirt, and confidence Jacob had to respect. He hadn’t been with a guy in a long time, and he’d never been on the other side of the approach, and the change of pace had been sort of nice. 

He’d been flattered, actually. No wonder people were charmed so easily by Jacob. He couldn’t deny the attention had made him feel wanted, no matter how rehearsed it might be. 

The guy was full of compliments, about Jacob’s eyes, his smile, his outfit. About how it was just crazy that someone like him was sitting all alone. He was handsy, but Jacob didn’t mind so much, not when he was feeling a little drunk off so much praise. 

He’d smiled, he’d flirted back, and he’d reconsidered his hesitance to bring home a man after so long. Maybe he could give it a chance. 

And then at some point he’d just… stopped being able to keep up. Like the club was melting away, and Jacob couldn’t stay in his own body. 

“I’m taking you home,” the guy says, voice low. Which Jacob still isn’t entirely against, right up until- “Back to my place, remember? Doesn’t that sound good?” 

No, no, that’s the last thing Jacob wants to do. That’s not the plan, that’s never part of the plan. That’s the wrong routine. He never goes back to their place. He always takes them back to his. 

He’s made a few exceptions for some girls who were too nervous, or a few memorable nights where nobody had left the function at all, and once when they’d made improper use of his backseat. But tonight is not an exception. 

“No,” he says, intent on telling this guy as much. That he appreciates how eager he is, that he really is flattered, but he doesn’t think it’s right tonight. The guy drops his arm from the top of the booth to finally rest over Jacob’s shoulders, and his breath stutters before he can find the strength to speak again. “No, m’ okay. I th’nk I… I might need t’... take a- a rain check.” 

It’s getting harder and harder to form words properly. Like the numbness is creeping up slowly, his jaw getting slacker, his head heavier. 

The guy’s hand is rubbing circles in Jacob’s shoulders, fingers trailing up to play with the hair at the nape of his neck. And it should feel nice, but it doesn’t, because Jacob doesn’t feel good anymore. 

He tries to move away, only to find that he can’t. His body feels sluggish, and the man’s arm is heavy around him, keeping him in place. 

“That’s alright,” he says. His other hand moves to Jacob’s thigh, too high, and Jacob realizes that he can barely feel his legs. “You just relax, Jake. I’m gonna take good care of you.” 

That’s not his name. He’d given this guy his name, he always gives them his name. He doesn’t like being called anything else. 

“I,” he starts, and then has to pause to swallow again. It’s almost impossible to make his mouth move. His body feels like dead weight. “I… m’ gonna go h’me. I w’nna go h’me.” 

He feels like a child. He feels pathetic and scared when he should be in his element, witty and charming and talking his way out of whatever this has so quickly spiraled into. 

It had been supposed to be a good night. He’d been in a good mood, in a striking dark outfit, and earlier he’d gotten Sebastian to stumble over his words and leave in a huff of annoyance, cheeks tinged red. 

But now he’s stuck here, with this guy’s hands on him, and he’s rapidly losing control of this. And this fucking guy is grinning right in his face, like this was exactly what he wanted. 

“I know you want to go home,” he says, and Jacob feels sick. The hand slides higher up his thigh, and Jacob’s eyes dart away from his face, trying to look at anything else. “But I don’t think you’re in any place to get yourself there. So you’re gonna come home with me, alright?” 

For the first time, Jacob wishes he could panic. He wishes he could panic, and do it loud, and cause a scene. It’s all trapped inside, coursing through a body he’s slowly being ejected from, and he’s all alone.  

It’s a last ditch effort, maybe, the way his eyes scan the club. A last ditch effort he knows won’t matter. People know him, but only well enough to recognize his face. 

He looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be, leaned back in a booth with someone’s hands all over him, preparing to leave for the night with a stranger. Nobody would look twice. 

He can’t see the bar from here, but he doubts the new bartender would notice anything different either. And he’s busy enough as it is, even in the later hour. 

The stage is as alive as ever, like it should be. The band lost in their music, in the crowd watching, playing for the people who come here because they love the music. Not for the people like Jacob, who can’t appreciate it, only here to exploit the space.

Sebastian is at the piano, his posture a little stiff even as he sways to the song he’s crafted. Jacob wonders if this is one of his, if he wrote it, or if it’s just a song he loves, something he’ll never get tired of sharing. 

He’s so passionate, and he indulges in his passions so freely every night. And for a second, left unguarded by the drug that must be in his system, Jacob feels envy.

He lets his gaze linger, lets himself watch Sebastian play. He can feel the man’s hands on him, unwanted, and he breathes through it and tries to pretend there’s nothing else here except for Wilder and his music.

The stage lights are an anchor. Temporary, beautiful, and Jacob clings to the music that flows from his hands like it’s the last thing he’ll ever know.   

Sebastian’s hands don’t stop, the music never quiets. But he glances up from the piano for a moment, eyes wandering. Watching the audience, scanning the space he’s created. 

And then Sebastian’s eyes meet his. It’s only for a second, though time feels like it’s dragging along in a cruel, sluggish trek.

Jacob tries to hold his gaze. It's difficult, with the way his vision is graying at the edges, and the way he can barely move his head from where it’s practically cradled against his impromptu date’s shoulder. 

He sees Sebastian’s brow furrow and his mouth drop into a frown, something that wasn’t quite his usual scowl. He doesn’t know if it’s concern, but he doubts it. 

Jacob doesn’t get much of a chance to dwell on it, anyway. The man’s hand lifts from his thigh to grip his chin, fingers curling along his jaw, and tugs his face back until Jacob is forced to look him right in the eye, piercing blue eyes practically unwrapping him. 

His body is heavy and weightless all at once, and all he can do is sit there and let it happen. He wants to squirm, wants to yell, wants to raise his arms and push at this guy’s chest until he gets out of his space. But his hands are limp at his sides, unresponsive, and his legs have gradually gone numb.

The song keeps playing, piano and all, uninterrupted. 

“It’s getting late,” the guy says, warm breath washing over Jacob’s face. His thumb strokes along Jacob’s jaw. “Let’s take this somewhere more private, huh?”

It’s a cruel imitation of how Jacob ends his nights. The pick up lines, the flirting, the closeness, the gentle touching, all before guiding an eager girl out the front doors to take her home. 

He’d been so caught off guard, so stupidly, embarrassingly excited to be on the other end, that he hadn’t thought to watch his drink, hadn’t watched a stranger’s hands, hadn’t thought for a second that he wasn’t untouchable when he smiled and dressed right. 

He tries again to protest, to say anything at all, but it only comes out a garbled, panicked wheeze. He’a already being maneuvered out of the booth with startling ease. This guy is as strong as he looks and he moves quickly, like he knows exactly what he’s doing here. 

Jacob’s arm is thrown over his shoulders, hand dangling limply over the man’s chest. His legs are dead weight under him as he’s lifted up and dragged away from the table, and the guy takes his weight with only a grunt of effort, trying to steady him when he sways. 

“Easy, easy,” he says, a whisper in Jacob’s ear that makes him shudder. “Almost there, just close your eyes. I’m parked right out front.” 

Jacob feels unbearingly dizzy when they move, the club spinning in circles around him, rocking back and forth. “L’t… l’t go–” 

His other hand wraps around Jacob’s waist, squeezing at his hip, and Jacob’s knees buckle. He doesn’t fight it when his vision blurs and darkens again. 

It isn’t a far walk, even dragging Jacob’s weight, even with his useless efforts to plant and drag his feet to slow them down. Like it’ll do anything other than delay the inevitable. Jacob can barely even see, and he’s pulled through the dim lighting, away from the comfort of the music, away from the palace he’d stupidly let himself grow comfortable in. 

He thinks he hears applause. He thinks he hears a voice in the microphone, something brief, something hasty, and then it’s gone. He doesn’t hear the music start up again. He’s not sure if it’s because there isn’t another song playing, or if he’s just too out of it to hear anything but his own shallow breathing.

He doesn’t know what to do. He has no idea what to do and he can feel himself slipping, retreating somewhere small into the back of his mind, somewhere safer where this can’t touch him, can’t hurt him, and—

“Hey, hey.” 

They come to a sudden stop, still a few paces from the exit, and Jacob’s stomach lurches. His head lolls against the guy’s chest, and he blinks slowly, trying to come back.

There’s a man in a dark blue suit in front of them, arms outstretched a little like he’s trying to create a barrier. The face is still blurry, but there’s an unmistakable scowl and a strand of messy hair falling into his eyes. 

“Excuse me,” Wilder says, and he doesn’t sound happy. Jacob doesn’t know why he isn’t on stage anymore. “Everything okay here?” 

The guy adjusts and tightens his hold, pressing Jacob a little firmer against his side. Jacob wonders if he’ll let him go if he pukes all over his shoes, because he’s getting close. 

“Oh, yeah,” Jacob’s date says, and he’s holding Jacob so tight his fingers are digging into his hipbone. “Just heading home for the night. Someone had a little too much to drink.” 

He says it like a joke, like he expects Wilder to laugh along with him and let them through. Jacob expects the same thing. 

He doesn’t expect Wilder’s eyes to narrow and lock in on Jacob’s face, ducking his head slightly to make himself eye level. Jacob can’t move to greet him, his face slack and frozen, resting against the stranger’s chest.

“Hey,” Sebastian says, with a little less venom. “You okay, man?” 

Jacob tries to respond, no I don’t feel good I don’t know him I want to go home, but he can barely make his lips part, and it all comes out a useless gust of empty air. 

“We’re gonna get him to bed,” the guy says for him, impatience leaking into his voice. “Have a good night, pal.” 

Wilder doesn’t move. “Sorry, who are you?” 

“I’m his boyfriend, man,” the guy says, tugging Jacob impossibly closer. “You wanna back off? We’re getting out of here.” 

Jacob sees Wilder’s jaw tighten. He sees his eyes flicker from Jacob to the stranger, then back to Jacob. He sees his shoulders square, that god awful posture fixing itself for a moment. 

“Yeah, okay,” Wilder says. “Get your hands off him and get the fuck out of my bar.” 

Another wave of dizziness washes over Jacob, so intense his knees buckle. He’s kept upright, but not very gently, the man’s arms digging into his sides to keep him up. Jacob feels him go tense, that impatience quickly morphing into dangerous anger. 

“What the fuck is your problem?” 

Wilder ignores him, his eyes only on Jacob. “Palmer? Hey, hey, can you say something? Are you okay?” 

His body feels like sand and the room won’t stop spinning. But he manages a small shake of his head, despite the way it makes his stomach protest. He hopes it’s enough. 

Sebastian turns his head towards the bouncer by the wall, lingering near the doors. His voice is frantic when it comes out, louder than the surrounding chatter, and Jacob has never heard him sound so furious. “Can I get some help over here?”

Jacob loses track of the next few minutes. His vision blurs, tunnels. It’s like he’s thrown backwards out of his own body, and it leaves what’s left of him reeling and dizzy and lost. 

From what little he gets, he thinks that might be for the best. 

There’s shouting around him, voices he can’t lock onto, can’t recognize. Everything sounds like he’s underwater, too far away to reach, his body too heavy to swim to the surface. Useless, limp, dead weight. 

But there’s hands on him, he can still feel that much. Every touch burns, too tight, too close, his skin crawling. Around his waist, on his chest, on his arms, pulling, tugging, holding–

But then they’re gone, and Jacob comes around just enough to feel himself stumble, his own legs incapable of holding up his weight. 

And suddenly he’s on the ground, the floor cold against his palms. He’s still sitting up, he can feel himself swaying, and he curls forward in a desperate attempt not to throw up all over himself. He feels his forehead hit his knees, and he wishes more than anything that he could feel his arms just so he could wrap them around himself. 

He tries to breathe, tries to focus, tries to see. But it’s all blurry, too dark, just shapes and shadows and colors floating around above him. Everything is spinning underneath him, around and around and around, and he still can’t move. 

“Gh,” he manages, elegant. “Wh’rm- wh’r–?” 

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” He swears he can hear Wilder somewhere close, and he tries to focus on the blur of movement in front of him. “You’re okay, we’ve got you, you’re okay. Jesus, fuck– can you look at me? Can you open your eyes for a second? Palmer?” 

Something touches him, just a hand on his arm, and Jacob thinks he blacks out. Like the floor disappears out from under him, and he’s gone. Terrifying as it is, it’s a relief from having to be present for any of this. 

Nothing is any better when he comes back around the second time. He pries his eyes open a little, terrified of what he might find, but it’s not much. Still just lights and shapes, slowly trying to reconstruct themselves into something his drugged brain can recognize. 

He still can’t breathe. It still comes out shaky and shallow, too fast, and his chest squeezes with every inhale and shudders with every exhale.  

“-elax, just relax. Just breathe, man, you’ve gotta breathe. I know it feels awful right now, I know, but you’re fine. You’re safe.” 

Wilder is crouched in front of him, trying to talk him through this. His voice is high and panicked, and he sounds seconds away from hyperventilating himself.

He’s got two fingers on Jacob’s neck, just below his jaw, checking his pulse, and he looks angrier than Jacob has ever seen him before. 

“H’y,” Jacob slurs, the words still barely coming out as anything audible. “Did I… d’ I in- interrupt th’ sh’w?” 

Sebastian looks like he wants to kill Jacob with his bare hands. He also just looks relieved that Jacob can form thoughts and words. “Thank fuck. Don’t fucking move. I don’t know if I need to call an ambulance.” 

That’s the last thing Jacob wants. He doesn’t want a hospital, and he doesn’t want more people looking at him. He just wants to go home. He wants to forget this happened. 

“No h’spital,” he breathes. “Pl’s. M’ okay. J’s… gonna sleep ‘t off.”  

He realizes, slowly, that he doesn’t know where he is. There’s no music, no chatter, no warm lighting. He’s sitting on the floor, leaned against the wall, the room bare around him. There’s nobody else around, just him and Wilder. 

“Wh–” He has to pause and squeeze his eyes shut, the nausea unrelenting. “Wh’re, m’ I?” 

“Just backstage,” Sebastian says, still kneeling on the floor in front of Jacob. “You’re fine, you’re okay. We just wanted to get you some privacy.” 

Jacob tries to nod, and regrets it when it just makes everything hurt more. It feels like his brain is sloshing around in his head, and he can barely manage to move his neck at all. 

“M’ not drunk,” he says when he’s able, because he realizes it’s probably important to clarify. “I didn’t… barely h’d ‘nything. He put sm’thing in my… in my drink, I–”

“I know, Palmer.” Wilder looks at him like he’s stupid. “Stop trying to talk. It’s okay, we know.  We called the cops. My security’s handling it.” 

Jacob closes his eyes for a second again, letting his head fall limp against the wall. He feels so fucking heavy and so fucking sick. 

“Jesus, Palmer, Jesus.” He hears Wilder shift in front of him, and as much as he just wants to drift off and sleep forever, he forces his eyes back open. “Hey, drink this. Come on, stay with me.” 

He’s holding a plastic water bottle, and the panic settles a little more firmly across Jacob’s chest. He eyes it warily, only relaxing a fraction when Sebastian twists the cap with a pop, making sure Jacob can see it had been sealed. 

He can’t lift his arms to take it when he tries, and it might be the most humiliating experience of his life when Wilder has to lift it to his lips for him and hold it steady. 

He wants to sink into the floor. He’s made a complete fool of himself, and he’s never showing his face again. 

He can only manage two sips before he’s choking, like his body still can’t get the memo and his throat has forgotten how to swallow, the water sliding down and sitting uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. 

But it helps a little, even if the coughing fit that follows makes his ears ring. The water is cold, and it eases some of the pain. He can curl his fingers slightly when he tries, which is progress, but he still can’t move more than that. 

“S’rry,” he mumbles. “Hurts.” 

Because he’s already debased himself enough, he might as well go further. Wilder doesn’t laugh, at least. He’s still scowling, still clearly agitated, but at least he isn’t making fun of him right now. 

“Let me see your phone,” Wilder says, and raises his voice a little when Jacob just blinks at him, lost. “Do you have your phone with you?” 

“My… why?” 

“So I can call someone to come pick you up,” Sebastian says, setting the plastic bottle down and scooting a little closer. “I’m gonna get you home, but you have to tell me who I can call for you.”

Oh. 

It’s a reasonable enough request, and it’s surprisingly nice of Wilder to care enough to offer. He tries to think of an answer. His first instinct is Hannah, because when things are at their worst he always wants Hannah. 

But god, no. He can’t call Hannah with this. He can’t do that to her.

And even if he could, she’s out of town for work until the end of next week. She’s been out of town more and more lately, busy with the real world, and Jacob has been trying not to bother her as much. 

Cal might make the drive with only mildly complaining, but he’d flown down with her this time around. Something about trying to spend more time with her to make up for the time he’d wasted when Jacob had been around. Which was great. 

He knows Liz, he likes Liz, but she’s Hannah’s friend, not his. He doesn’t even have her number saved. 

And that’s… that’s it. That’s the end of Jacob’s list.

Jacob has spent a lot of time pretending he isn’t lonely. Flashing around his money, his looks, a new girl every night, to anyone who might catch a glimpse of him. But he’s never bothered trying to lie to himself. There was no point. 

He knew he was lonely. He knew that in an emergency, he’d have no one to call. It just hadn’t been laid out quite so plainly for him like this before. 

He feels so sick. He can barely talk, he can barely even move, stuck on the floor of a bar owned by someone who hates his guts, miles away from home, and he doesn’t know what to do. 

He doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do. He wants to go home. 

“S’ okay,” Jacob says, barely a breath. “J’st… j’st give me… give me a couple minutes. C’n I sit for a couple minutes? N’ then I’ll… I can get myself home.” 

Sebastian stares at him. He’d leaned closer, straining to hear Jacob’s slurred nonsense, his hands on Jacob’s arms to keep him from slumping forward. “Are you fucking stupid?”

“Wh’n do you cl’se?” Jacob asks, because he has no idea what time it is. He doesn’t know how much he’s lost, how long he’d been teetering between alive and dead. But it had already been getting late by the time he’d taken a sip of that drink. “Won’t… won’t stay past cl’se, s’ okay.” 

“Palmer, come on. Stay awake.” 

He hadn’t even realized his eyes had started to close, that his head had started to drop, and it takes a considerable amount of effort to peel them back open. There’s a hand on his face, calloused and cold, and it feels like heaven against his too warm skin. 

He shamefully, greedily, leans into it. He can’t help it, the way he slumps forward into Wilder’s hold, practically chasing after the touch. 

Even if he’s just trying to keep Jacob from passing out on him, it feels so nice. He can't remember the last time someone touched him like this without trying to get his clothes off in the same breath. 

“M’ up,” Jacob says, even as Sebastian has to keep his head up. “M’ awake.” 

“Palmer, who can I call?” Wilder asks again. “Anyone, come on, I’ll tell them what happened. I’ll pay for gas. But I can’t put you in a taxi like this.”

“No one,” Jacob says, and he’s glad that he’s at least too out of it to dwell on how humiliating this all is. “There’s… not anyone. S’ okay. I can… I can figure it out.” 

“What do you mean?” Sebastian asks, frantic again because he can’t have mercy and just let it go. “This wasn’t your fault, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You need help.” 

“I kn’w,” Jacob slurs. “No one will come” 

Wilder is silent for a long moment, and Jacob can’t bring himself to look anywhere but the wall over his shoulder, blurry and grayed out at the edges. He has no idea what to do, and Wilder hasn’t dropped his hand, this thumb mindlessly rested on Jacob’s cheekbone. It feels nicer than the way the other guy had held his face, rough and possessive. 

Wilder has nice hands. He should probably keep that thought to himself. 

“Okay,” Sebastian says, and Jacob resolutely ignores his disappointment when he finally pulls away. “Alright, okay. Don’t puke on me.” 

Jacob doesn’t have time to ask what he means. Sebastian grabs his arm, the limp useless thing, and guides it over his own shoulder. He gets his legs steady beneath him and pulls them both up to their feet, and Jacob does nearly puke all over both of them when the world starts spinning again. 

Jacob’s legs still won’t cooperate, unresponsive and limp beneath him, and they both nearly crash right back to the floor when Sebastian has to support both of their weight, shaking under the strain of it.

Clearly, he didn’t make a habit out of this. The other guy had made dragging Jacob around look effortless. 

“Fuck, Jesus.” Wilder’s other arm wraps around Jacob’s waist, holding on for dear life. “Come on man, you gotta help me out a little.” 

He tries, he really does, despite the way he can barely keep up with what’s going on around him. He’s numb, and his head is pounding, and he feels like nothing more than a corpse. He’s floating in and out of his own body, and he doesn’t know where Sebastian is moving him to. 

“Trying,” he says, uselessly trying to find his footing and pick himself up. “Can’t feel m’ legs.” 

“Jesus.” 

He does have to give Wilder credit. He manages to adjust Jacob in his arms enough to drag him forward, one careful step after another, and move forward. Maybe he’s stronger than he looks, or maybe Jacob has just been skipping one too many meals in between the gym. 

Either way, Jacob is barely aware of what’s happening around him until he hears a door open, and suddenly the crisp night air is washing over his flushed face. It helps the headache slightly, makes it a little easier to take a shallow breath, and Jacob forces himself to keep his eyes open.

Wilder had managed to walk them both out to the parking lot, probably out the back door. The lot is mostly empty by now, the street quiet, and he has a sinking feeling he’s lost more time than he’d thought. 

The sinking feeling only grows when he realizes he’s definitely being kicked out. 

He can’t blame him. They aren’t friends, and Wilder and his employees need to clean up and go home. If Wilder barely wants him inside when he can stand on his own two feet, he’s not getting any kind of special treatment now. 

He tries to remember how close he’d parked tonight. And if his keys are still in his pocket. God, he hopes so. 

He also hopes Wilder will have the decency of bringing him to his car, maybe getting the door open for him, instead of just dumping him on the curb to wait this out. It feels like too much to ask, after tonight. 

He swallows, working his jaw. “S’ the gray one.” 

Wilder slows, but doesn't stop. One step, two step, three, moving them across the lot. “What?”

“My car,” Jacob says. “S’ the… can you just- just help me get in? N’ then I can… I can just wait there.” 

“Oh my god,” Wilder says. He sounds appalled. “Palmer, shut up.”  

He shuts up. For once he doesn’t have it in him to bite back. All his fight is gone. And there’s nothing to say, anyway. Nothing but another apology and a promise that this is the last time anyone here will have to see him. 

Besides, if he tries too hard to focus right now, he’s worried he’ll break down, or something equally mortifying. That can wait until he’s alone. 

He thinks he sees his car out of the corner of his eye, always so flashy compared to everything else that’s usually in the lot. Sebastian walks them right past it. 

“S’ my car,” he says, in case Wilder had missed it, somehow. “Th’ts my- wh’re are you–?” 

The two of them hit the side of a different car, stumbling slightly, and Jacob makes another embarrassing sound of panic when Sebastian practically lays him over the hood and lets go, leaving him staring at the blurry sight of red paint. 

“What–?” 

“It’s okay,” Wilder says again. “Srry, you’re just- just hold on. Hold on a second, don’t try to move. Don’t move.” 

It’s a useless command, seeing as JAcob couldn’t move even if he wanted to. He watches Sebastian practically sprint around to the passenger side of the car, fishing keys out of his pocket. It’s an older lock, and he misses the keyhole in the door three times with shaking hands before he gets it open. 

The thing is a convertible, and it looks ancient, completely out of place next to anything else that might be parked here. 

Wilder is back as soon as he yanks the passenger side door open, easing his hands under Jacob's arms and pulling him back upright before guiding him into the car. The seats are dark leather, blessedly cool against his hands when slumps back, and he once again wills himself not to throw up. 

It isn’t until Wilder closes the door and moves back around to slide into the driver’s seat, that reality catches up to Jacob. Practically paralyzed, nobody to call, alone with Wilder in his car in the middle of the night. 

He doesn’t understand, left floating somewhere outside his own body, and the panic slams right back into him, unmistakable no matter how far away he feels. 

Wilder reaches for him, his hand too low, and Jacob has just enough control to try and rear back, eyes going a little wide. He can’t go far, stuck in place, but Wilder freezes.

“I’m getting your seatbelt,” he says. “You’re fine. Just relax.” 

Wilder does what he says he’s going to. He pulls the seatbelt over Jacob’s waist, buckles it into place, and pulls his hand away. 

He sticks his keys in the ignition, and the car protests, sputtering, like it hasn’t run in years. 

“Come on.”Wilder curses under his breath, and tries again. “Come on, please start, please start.”

It takes three tries, but the car reluctantly comes to life with a deafening roar of an old engine. Sebastian sighs, shoulders dropping in relief. Jacob misses his very quiet, very easy to start up car. All it takes is the press of one button. 

“Okay,” Wilder says, breathless. “Okay, we’re okay. You’re okay. What’s your address?” 

Jacob blinks, slowly, and tries to turn the words over in his head. “My…?” 

“Your address, Palmer,” Wilder says, pulling his phone out from his pocket. “Give me your address and then you can sleep, okay? I’m just trying to get you home.” 

The words sit heavy in his skull, and Jacob doesn’t think he’s fully understanding them even as blindly agrees and gives Sebastian Wilder his home address and gate code, like he’s lost all sense of self preservation there is to have. 

“Alright.” 

He puts it into the GPS on his phone, sets it down on the dashboard, and pulls out of the parking lot. The lurch of the car just makes Jacob more nauseous, and he closes his eyes, weightless against the leather seat. “Just, uh. Tell me if you think you’re gonna puke. Or if you need me to turn around and take you to a hospital. Okay?” 

All Jacob can manage is quiet hum, any intelligible response dying on his tongue. He’s out before they even leave the lot, the world fading into inky darkness. 

It’s not a restful sleep. He can’t even call it sleep at all, not when he stays aware of his own ragged breathing and racing heart the entire time, and the rumbling of the car’s engine is a constant background presence. 

He can hear Wilder talking to himself, he thinks. He sounds scared. Or angry, or stressed out of his mind. Maybe all three. It’s impossible to tell. But Jacob can’t move, can’t open his eyes, can’t say anything that might make this better. Nothing could make this better. 

He’s yanked back into his body with a hand on his shoulder and a careful jostle. Not enough to make him sick, thankfully, but sudden enough that the jolt of panic that stabs him through the chest makes him feel like he’s going to die. 

“Hey, hey! It’s fine, it’s okay. It’s just me.” 

It doesn’t feel like he can move his face much, but his distress must show somehow because Wilder is immediately trying to comfort him like a spooked animal caught in a trap. 

“It’s fine, Palmer, you’re fine,” Wilder says. Jacob wishes for a moment that he would just call him by his name. “Am I at the right house? This place is fucking huge.” 

Jacob slides his gaze away from the blurry image of Sebastian to glance out the windshield- and he’s awake enough to recognize his own place. Up on its lonely hill, the glow of the pool visible under the moonlight, the lights off inside. Exactly how he’d left it. 

He’d planned on bringing someone home tonight, lighting up the place for a few hours. He’d play some music, make them drinks, and let things feel alive again before they fucked and it was over. 

“Yeah,” he says, and breathes through the next wave of dizziness. “S’ home.” 

Wilder had pulled up as far as he could on the gravel pathway, but it was still a small trek to the front door. And then an even more decent trek to his living room, because there was no way he was trying to get upstairs right now. He’d rather not break his neck. 

“Th’nk you,” he says, because god knows he owes Wilder that much. “G’night.” 

His body still feels like lead. A little bit better than it had when he’d been in that stranger’s arms, but not by much. He focuses on lifting his arm, slowly, slowly, trying to get himself to grab the door handle. His hand barely twitches, and his breath catches in helpless panic. 

“Will you fucking– hold on.” 

Wilder is turning off the ignition and clambering out of the car before Jacob can manage to do anything at all. In the blink of an eye he’s back around at Jacob’s side, yanking open the car door. 

And Jacob can’t do anything but let him when Wilder throws his arm over his shoulders again, and drags him out of the car in a heap of useless limbs. 

“Jesus,” Wilder says, for what must be the hundredth time that night. “Jesus, fuck. Fucking- okay, okay. You’re okay, it’s okay.” 

He’s muttering to himself, frantic nonsense under his breath while he manhandles Jacob up his own driveway and to his front door. He’s glad at least one of them can panic tonight. 

“Okay,” he says, pulling them both to a stop. Jacob can feel him shaking, struggling to support his weight. “Where are your keys? Please tell me you have your keys.” 

“Mhm,” he hums. He can feel himself slipping again, clinging to consciousness by his fingernails. “S’ the… n’ my pocket. Front pocket.” 

It’s a little awkward, with how Wilder is still struggling to take a majority of Jacob's weight. But his hand is careful, slipping into Jacob’s pocket and tugging his keys free. He barely even feels him. 

“Almost there,” Sebastian says. He pushes open the front door and they both stumble into the house. Wilder fumbles at the wall for a minute, and then jumps with a yelp when the lights come on automatically, and Jacob’s headache gets a million times worse. 

“Jesus!” Wilder yelps, like he’s never seen an automatic light before in his life. “Jesus. Fuck. Just… okay. Almost there, Palmer, come on.” 

Jacob’s house is an open layout, spacious and bright, and he’s glad he doesn’t have to give Wilder any directions. He also seems to forgo the idea of stairs, or looking for a bedroom, and Jacob is more than happy with the couch tonight. It’s not like he hasn’t let himself pass out here countless times before, when his bed feels a little too big and empty. 

The relief when his knees hit the familiar leather is almost enough to make him cry. Wilder seems to share the sentiment, easing Jacob down onto the cushions with a shaky, slightly hysterical breath. 

His hands linger, though. Still cool to the touch, even through Jacob’s suit, resting on his shoulders and sliding down to steady against his chest, guiding him to lean back against the couch, before finally pulling away. 

“Talk to me for a sec,” Sebastian says. He crouches in front of the couch, trying to meet Jacob’s eyes. “How do you feel?”

He doesn’t know. He still feels sick, but he doesn’t think he’s going to puke anymore, thank god. His heart is racing so hard it hurts, and the pounding in his head seems to be trying to keep rhythm with it. 

He feels too hot and too cold all at once. He thinks he might be shaking, uncontrollable tremors through his hands and legs, but everything is too numb to be sure. 

“Bad,” he settles on. “Don’…. I d’nt know wh’t he gave me.” 

He doesn’t know shit about date-rape drugs. He doesn’t even know how or where people get these things from, and he has no fucking desire to. Especially not something strong enough to get him so fucked up he can’t even lift his head. He’s not exactly a small guy. 

“I don’t know,” Wilder says, and he sounds angry all over again. He usually sounds angry when he’s around Jacob, he’s used to that, but this is something different. Something heavier in his voice, wound up tight. “You should be in a hospital, but I thought you might actually kill me if I put you in an ambulance.” 

He would have. He hates hospitals. 

“I j’s wan’to sleep,” Jacob slurs. “M’ okay.” 

“Hang tight for a second,” Wilder says, like asking Jacob to stay awake right now isn’t like asking him to move a mountain. “I’m gonna grab you some more water.” 

Jacob melts against the couch as much as he can, and Wilder stands up and disappears across the room to the kitchen, his footsteps echoing. The house is always so quiet, so still, and every movement always ricochets around like a reminder of the unused space. 

“Careful,” he calls, as loud as he can. It’s not much. “Don’... don’ let the light scare you.” 

“Fuck off!” Wilder calls back. But Jacob swears he hears him jump when the kitchen light turns on by itself. It makes him smile, despite it all. 

He takes his sweet time coming back to the living room. Jacob can hear him piddling around the kitchen, mumbling and swearing to himself while cabinets open and close, growing louder when he pours a glass of water from the fridge. 

Jacob doesn’t know what could possibly be so confusing about his kitchen, but he quickly stops caring when the nausea steadily returns. It starts as a chill down his spine, his skin clammy, and suddenly he’s trying to swallow down the saliva flooding his mouth. 

He tries to sit forward and find his footing again, make it to the bathroom or the trash, but he still can’t fucking move, still weighed down by the drug in his system. All he can do is wheeze, his head tilted back, and he’s sudden;y terrified over the very real possibility of choking on his own sick.

“Fuck.” He’s going to puke, he’s going to puke and he can’t even curl forward to stop himself from doing it all over himself. “Wil… Wl’dr– Seb.” 

Sebastian is back in the blink of an eye, practically sprinting back from the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand. He sets it down on the glass coffee table, and long legs carry him right back to the couch, hands already working under Jacob’s arms. 

“M’ gonna puke,” he says, face burning. “Gonna choke–” 

“You’re good, you’re good,” Wilder says, and he’s carefully pulling Jacob up from the couch, taking on the burden of his weight once again, leaning him forward even as he guides him out of the living room. “Just a second, come on.” 

The kitchen is closer than the downstairs bathroom. He doesn’t have time to get to the trashcan unfortunately, but he at least has time to be leaned over the sink before his stomach twists, and he gags, his body finally rejecting whatever had been forced into his system.

It’s disgusting, and he can’t stop shaking, and it burns like fire in his throat. Wilder is holding him up so he doesn’t fall face first into his own mess, one hand against his chest, the other rubbing circles into his back. 

If he could form a coherent thought, he might ask Wilder why he was even still here, let alone being so patient. So nice. 

Right now, when he has nothing but tunnel vision and pain, he’s just grateful for it. 

He’s dizzy again when he’s done, spitting up one last time into the sink before sagging forward. Wilder’s hold tightens, keeping Jacob from collapsing to the floor. 

“S’rry,” Jacob says. He wants to sink into the floor. “M’ sorry.” 

“It’s not my sink,” Wilder says. “It’s okay, it’s fine. We can handle it in the morning, just don’t die on me.” 

Tomorrow is going to suck. 

Sebastian gets him back to the couch once they’re both sure Jacob isn’t going to start puking again, but he does disappear for another moment and comes back with the kitchen trash, leaving it by the armrest. 

And he still doesn’t leave. Jacob had been surprised enough that he hadn’t just been dumped on the curb, and even more so when Wilder hadn’t just kicked him out of his car at the front door. He’d done more than enough here. 

It’s not like he has any reason to care. They aren’t even friends. 

But Wilder crouches by the couch again and takes off Jacob’s shoes for him, tossing them aside. He hesitates a moment, before reaching up and peeling off Jacob’s jacket, soaked through with sweat.

He tosses it aside too, letting it drape carelessly over the side of the couch, but for once Jacob doesn’t care about wrinkles. He can fix that later. 

He tries not to think about how tonight could have ended, if Wilder hadn’t stopped the show, if he hadn’t seen Jacob look a little off from across the room. 

A different version of this. Undressed by someone else’s hands, someone less kind, less patient. Someone who didn’t want to help. Laying there and letting it happen, unable to move. In a stranger’s home. Sick and lost and alone. 

He feels sick again. His throat is tight, and the words almost don’t come out. 

“Th’nk you,” Jacob says. It’s not enough, and he swallows past the burn and tries again. “Thank you.” 

He’s humiliated, and everything hurts, and he’s probably never going to see Sebastian Wilder again after tonight, but he hopes he can get across that he’s grateful. 

Sebastian looks at him funny. That same look he’d given Jacob when he’d caught him drawing, before Jacob had blown up and stormed off.

And all at once, his head so blurry and stuffed with cotton he can’t even see straight, he realizes why it’s so familiar. 

Hannah used to look at him like that all the time. When he’d insisted he didn’t have any hobbies, that there was nothing he loved to do just for the sake of it, nothing to fill his days except alcohol and girls and shopping. 

When he’d tell her she was all he needed. When he thanked her for sticking around.  

“There’s just not much to me,” Jacob had told her once, when they’d spent another long night just sitting and talking, like it was just the two of them and the world could continue on its own. “I’m not a very interesting guy, once you get to know me.”

The bar guy. The one night stand guy. The guy you liked for a little while, loved exactly once, and then gave up on. 

And she’d looked at him funny. Smiling almost, but not quite. Fond, but something else behind the sad little smile. Like she knew something he didn’t, saw something he didn’t, and it was eating her alive not to claw it out from under his skin with her bare hands and show the world.

He’s not sure why. She’d proved him right in the end.  

It’s how Sebastian’s looking at him now. Jacob doesn’t understand any better this time around.

“Yeah,” Sebastian says. The look fades away, and Jacob lets it go. “Don’t mention it.” 

That’s all he gets. He doesn’t need much more than that. Sebastian’s hands find his shoulders again, easing him slowly down across the couch. 

As soon as Jacob’s head hits the cushion, cool leather against his temple, he doesn’t remember anything else.