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He doesn’t know what ripped him out of his sleep. Nightmare, of course, but he can’t tell what kind of. They’re just all the same - half-forgotten memories of literal hell. His breathing is uneven, his muscles painfully rigid. He doesn’t need to remember the nightmare to feel the terror it carries. The unbearably close what-ifs that could’ve been, that could’ve ruined lives of so many more than they already did.
A warm weight shifts on the mattress next to him, a hand across his chest and a face on his shoulder, and Sebastian lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. The warm, safe, real presence by his side is the only thing that grounds him when the nightmares tear him out of sleep in them idle of the night. He can’t remember how many times he woke, but response always is nearly instantaneous.
“Nightmares never know when to stop now, do they?” Stefano mumbles sleepily into his shoulders, Italian accent even thicker than normally when he’s awake. Sebastian sighs, placing the palm of the hand on which Stefano lays on man’s back and bending his head a little closer to the other’s hair. It smells like the expensive, luxury shampoo Stefano insists on using, with a bit of something fresh and floral. But however he wouldn’t cringe at the price tag, Sebastian couldn’t help but come to start identifying this scent with safety and home.
“Yeah,” he sighs, looking at the white ceiling of the room. “It’s not as bad as after Beacon, but I’m still mentally exhausted. It’s been half a year now. Well, at least Lily’s doing much better.”
“Yes,” Stefano sighs, craning his neck to look up, too. “You think she’ll help me decorate the ceilings?”
“Of course she will,” Sebastian says with a smile. “Like she did with walls. You know she loves painting with you, go crazy and smear you with paint.”
There’s a heavy sigh, definitely about the last part, and Stefano hums, scooting a bit closer under covers and lays still on Sebastian’s chest, but his breathing doesn’t quite even, not in the way that would indicate sleep. Sebastian sighs, nuzzling his face into Stefano’s hair – a motion that helps him relax. With time, sleep will come. He’s not about to waste the night.
He doesn’t know what to think, honestly – about him and Stefano. He never does. So he doesn’t. It’s better this way.
Stefano is – or was, at the very least – a psychopath. A dangerous murderer, a cold case back from the time of KCPD. It grated Sebastian’s inner detective, but he allowed it, for reasons he as yet – if ever – to comprehend. When he didn’t kill the artist but decided to work with him instead, and when he dragged him out of that machinery when everything was said and done, Lily safe and MOBIUS main cell down at long last - despite himself, he was worried for Stefano. Not only that, but when they left, he allowed artist to go with them, wherever they went. So, Stefano followed.
Myra had planned this to end with her death in the first place. She knew that shutting down STEM with her as acting core would cause her death, and the letter she left him was a bittersweet half-confession half-goodbye, stressing that she wanted him and Lily to be happy. That and she left Sebastian a sum of money he never really thought he’d see in person, much less own. So, pushed by something, he didn’t know what, Sebastian opted to buy a house in the countryside, not far from city, near to the sea.
And in that house were enough rooms to accommodate Sebastian, Lily and Stefano. Therefore, Sebastian, for some reason did give Stefano a room. The artist, however he wouldn’t deny it, was in tears. It was a very heartfelt moment, really.
Except, Stefano never really used it. Not when he could just slip into Sebastian’s bed.
And Sebastian, against all logic, didn’t mind.
When he wakes the second time, he’s alone and the digits on the alarm clock tell him it’s past nine in the morning. He feels better rested than on most mornings, too, as if the nightmare didn’t even occur tonight. It’s just a bad, hazed half-memory of a dream right now.
So he gets up, brushes his hand through his hair and directs his steps towards the kitchen, only to stop, blink and stare, because-
Stefano is at the table, nursing his cappuccino, as usual – but that’s where the ‘usual’ ends. He’s still in his gray, silk pajamas, still crinkled from sleep, and his hair is very much what the artist would call a mess, only haphazardly brushed to cover-but-not-really the disfigured side of his face. It’s not like it doesn’t happen, but it’s rare, really. To see Stefano in something other than his perfectly groomed visage, pristine shirts and every hair just right.
“Dad!” Lily cheers from where she sits next to artist, waving a pencil. She’s drawing again. She always liked it, and with Stefano there to encourage it, Sebastian is required to regularly buy new materials. She’s improving, too. Massively, to that.
“Morning,” he says and ruffles her hair fondly, bending down to place a kiss on Stefano’s cheek and artist hums, leaning into it slightly, before Sebastian moves away and towards the counter.
“Oh must you drink that disgusting slop?” Stefano complains as Sebastian reaches for the bag of his favorite, cheap, bitter coffee. “Can you not try something more... Sophisticated?”
“Nope,” Sebastian says smugly, and Lily giggles at Stefano’s huff.
He turns with a cup of coffee to look at the two and smiles fondly at the sight. It’s so utterly domestic, it should feel wrong, especially after what transpired in STEM. But it doesn’t. It took Sebastian a while to realize, but he knows now. Knows why the nightmares are receding faster than they did before, why he feels more grounded, why nightmares don’t even matter that much save for ripping him out of sleep in the middle of the night. Why he can just go back to sleep after they wake him.
Lily and Stefano ground him. Remind him where he is, who he is. That this is real. That no matter the nightmares, STEM is past and now everything is working out. That he deserves to be happy.
“Something on your mind?” Stefano asks, suddenly very close to him, and Sebastian doesn’t startle. He got used to the artist’s fondness to sneak up on him. Instead, he leans into Stefano’s shoulder as the other wraps an arm around his waist and sighs contentedly.
“You’re a murderous psychopath,” Sebastian says. “How does it all even work?”
“I haven’t kill anyone ever since we left that dreadful machine, excuse you,” Stefano huffs in offense before pressing himself closer to Sebastian, enclosing them in a hug. “But some things just work.”
“I guess,” Sebastian mutters, before craning his neck to look at Lily. She’s still at the table, but looking intently at the two of them now, rather uncomfortably smug. “What was it today?”
“Amusement park,” she says and doesn’t stop smiling. Sebastian can’t help but fear she’s plotting something. She loves to plot. “Tomorrow it’s picnic. We still need to buy things and make sandwiches.”
“We’ll buy everything coming back from the park,” Stefano declares and Lily gives him one of her brilliant, wide smiles. Sebastian sighs and smiles, too.
Life is good.