Chapter Text
I’m in love with my best friend.
I’m in love with my best friend.
I’m in love with my best friend.
Sebastian smacked the laptop closed with such a force, he was almost surprised he didn’t hear the crunching tell-tale sign of a cracked monitor. He sighed dramatically, letting his head fall backward over the cheap rolling chair until his neck physically strained and his eyes were parallel to the dusty, dark ceiling above.
Dim, once fluorescent little stars clung sadly to his ceiling like faded and depressed little reminders of a childhood gone too soon. Over the years some of those stars had fallen one-by-one and broken on their hard impact with the ground, leaving behind a gross little sticker that looked oddly similar to chewed up bubble-gum. Others had been replaced with a myriad of stickers he and Sam had jumped off various furniture pieces trying to stick to ceiling. Of course, such attempts inevitably led to one broken ankle and two sprained wrists on three separate occasions. The ankle had been the last and final accident before they retired the endeavor altogether. Sam still complained about the summer he hadn’t been able to swim even once because of the cast.
Sebastian turned slowly to the left, watching those sad little stars spin like the revolution of time before coming to a stop.
Lots of things had been abruptly “stopped” since the years of glow-in-the dark stars and rainbow stickers. Lots of things had been abandoned since the laughter and giggles were innocent and free. People grew up, together, and apart. Happiness bloomed and happiness faded. Families changed, time moved on despite it all. One by one each of those missing little stars dwindled away to nothing before falling off their designated place all together.
Sebastian sat up slowly, then forward, leaning further still until his elbows balanced on his knees. His asymmetrical fringe fell down towards the ground and over his fingers like an inky black curtain that oddly had a strange purple tint to it.
He had it good, once upon a time .
He knew his childhood was honestly great .
His mom was great.
His pesky little sister was tolerable.
He’d been happy, and free, and laughed and played since as far back as he could remember.
He had all the yard space to explore on that mountain top.
He had frogs to look for in the lake.
He had two really great best friends to keep him company.
And then he had to fuck it all up and fall in love with one of them.
A loud buzzing to his right abruptly pulled the recluse out of his own internal monologue with a start. Sebastian threw all the previous thoughts out of his brain and pulled his attention to the phone as he plucked it off the desk’s corner with lithe fingers.
Sebastian nearly lept out of his skin all at once.
The hell was he doing here?
The dark male quickly scrambled through his messy artifacts, pulling a hoodie out from a pile of laundry and throwing it over his head with such speed, he didn’t even notice it was inside out until he tried to throw his phone in his pocket, leading to the heavy device falling with impressive heft onto his toe.
“Fuck!” He yelped childishly now lifting the traumatized foot into the air as if that was somehow going to fix the throbbing in his toe he’d just self-inflicted.
Another loud buzz from his phone had him scrambling to the door, his hoodie half off his head as he fumbled to put it on the right-side in , without tripping on the stairs that led up and out of his basement bedroom.
He managed successfully for the most part, only catching that same injured foot on the last step, landing with a wholly ungraceful tumble to the ground until his bare knees met the cold, hardwood floors. In all honesty, Sebastian hadn’t even thought about the bottom half of his body until feeling the cold hardwood against skin.
Why the FUCK wasn’t he wearing pants??
But Sam was now tapping his knuckles against the glass of the house’s front door and Sebastian decided he’d much rather have his best friend see him in boxer shorts than wake up the rest of the household at 1am.
And so it would be that Sebastian yanked that door open with alarming swiftness and violence, hoodie half on and over his pale upper torso, wearing nothing but shorts and mismatched socks.
With frogs on them, no less.
It didn’t help that it was mid winter and just a hair below freezing.
“Uhhh,” Sam gave his half-dressed friend a very peculiar once over, one eyebrow raised in partial amusement and equal amounts questioning. “Were you just-” Sebastian didn’t even let him finish the sentence.
“Family’s sleeping, and I just got out of the shower.”
It was a blatant lie. Sebastian wasn’t even sure why he felt compelled to give such an unbelievable story in the first place. His hair was dry, his skin wasn’t pink, and he probably smelled of cigarettes and day-old caffeine. There was no way in this hell of an encounter that Sam actually believed he’d just been in the shower rather than doing something much more salacious on his computer. Not that he had! He’d just been working…on things.
Sam just smiled, however, passing by his friend with a dramatic roll of his eyes and heading down the stairs without even needing to be asked.
Sebastian hadn’t even realized he was holding his breath the entire way down the stairs and into his room until the door closed behind him. He exhaled,
“DUDE, I’ve got news,” Sam started excitedly, throwing his keys onto the small table beside Sebastian’s door and shedding his heavy jacket off his shoulders unceremoniously.
Sebastian sat on the edge of his bed, mouth half opened and ready to ask for details before his eyes grew distracted by the lovely stretch of worn cotton over Sam’s warm, tanned skin of his bicep, the soft brush of blond hair against freckled skin, and the sliver of-
“Are you okay?”
Kill me. Kill me now.
“ Yep,” Sebastian released an embarrassing squeak in his voice that he hadn’t heard since hitting puberty in the tenth grade. He quickly cleared his throat, feigning aggravation as a cause of the inhumane sound he’d just made before attempting again. “I think it’s just allergies or something.”
And you’re my allergen.
“Aw dude, why didn’t you tell me? I could have brought you something.”
Yup. That was stupid. Feign allergies to the beach bunny allergic to everything that bloomed in the spring. You’re a genius.
“Your news?” Sebastian croaked. He didn’t actually care much about whatever the news was, he just wanted this whole topic of conversation dead and six-feet-under as fast as humanly possible. Thankfully Sam was never known for a good attention span.
“Right!”
Sam patted his hands against the pockets of his jeans until finding the audibly crunch of crumpled paper and procuring from his pocket, a very messily folded flyer that he thrusted into Sebastian’s face, positively vibrating with excitement.
“Zuzu City Heart Festival?” Sebastian read curiously between decor of gaudy hearts and nauseating pink cherubs.
“Yeeeees!” Sam clapped his hands excitedly, completely forgetting that three other human beings were sleeping on the floors above them. “There is a whole Valentine’s Day festival thing in the city next weekend, I submitted a sample of some of our songs, and they want us to perform there!”
Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, dude!” Sam threw himself onto the bed beside his friend, nearly sending the darker male flying up off the mattress’s edge in the process. Sam didn’t pay it any notice however, he was much more preoccupied with the high he was getting from all this excitement. “I mean they asked a couple of groups to play throughout the night, and like, all performers have to volunteer in at least one booth for an hour in the evening to secure their slot but isn’t it AWESOME?!”
It was, in all honestly, awesome.
“And there’s like all different things you can choose to work at, so you don’t have to do like the kissing booth one or anything if you don’t want to, but it’s also like, for charity or something…”
Sam kept on gushing his excitement and spewing out examples of other tables and booths that would be present at the festival with glee, but anything uttered after the words ‘kissing booth’ grew deaf on Sebastian’s ears.
“You’re doing the kissing booth?’ ” Sebastian interrupted Sam's excitable monologue between ‘pie station,’ and ‘Cupid’s face painting.’
Sam glanced at him, just barely starting to turn a little pink in his ears. “I mean, I was thinking about it.”
‘Thinking about it,’ said the most impulsive human being Sebastian had ever known. He didn’t ‘think about’ anything before just jumping in head first and hoping the bottom of the pool wasn’t less than six feet from the surface.
“I mean there’s way worse things to do than have hot girls waiting in line to kiss you for an hour, right??”
Sebastian swallowed so hard, the lump on his throat got lodged halfway down and he audibly choked trying just to get enough air into his lungs not to suffocate.
“Dude, you really gotta cut back on smoking.”
Sebastian waved his hands stupidly, feeling the heat blossoming in his face as he started coughing more violently at just the sheer thought of watching Sam get kissed by a slew of strangers.
The more Sebastian coughed, however, the more visibly worried Sam seemed to get until he made the executive decision to stand up and leave the room to fetch a glass of water.
Only once he was alone did Sebastian seem able to catch his breath.
Sam.
Kissing a bunch of strangers.
Sebastian having to watch Sam kiss a bunch of strangers, one-by-one with a smile on his face.
Then having to perform with him.
Sam came back into the room quickly and quietly, shutting the bedroom door back closed behind him before handing Sebastian a glass of water. “Are you sure you’re okay?” He sat beside his friend once more and instinctively reached out with a hand against Sebastian’s back.
Sebastian knew he was probably beet-red by now as he vigorously nodded and took the glass from him. The darker male downed the entire cup in one go before gasping dramatically and handing it back to Sam. He actually did feel a little bit better after that break his whole show granted him.
“What if the girls aren’t…” he considered his words carefully. “ Attractive?”
Attractive .
Of all the straight-guy language he could have chosen in describing the portion of the opposite sex his friend would love macking on him, Sebastian had chosen ‘ attractive.’
“Well I’m going to be blind-folded so I guess it doesn’t really matter.”
He was dead. He was SO going to die before any of his friends were even old enough to drink in public together.
“Seb,” Sam’s voice had dropped a degree below ‘happy,’ into the territory of ‘worried.’
Sebastian looked at him and felt the peace he’d needed starting to close in around him with the intensity that was Sam’s tantalizing green eyes. “There are a lot of things you can do that don’t involve like… touching people.”
I wouldn’t mind touching you.
“I’d really, really like you to be there though. Me and Abs can’t do this alone, you know.” His voice was soft and soothing, lulling Sebastian into an almost peaceful haze. “You’re just as much a part of the band as Abby or me.”
“You already talked to Abby?” Sebastian tried to not sound too disappointed that he wasn’t the first one to hear of this news, but he didn’t dwell on it too long.
“Yeah,” Sam started hesitantly before breaking character for an electric grin. “ She actually answered her damn phone the first time.”
Sebastian rolled his eyes and Sam laughed, finally allowing himself to flop back on Sebastian’s bed with enthusiasm. For lack of a better judgment, Sebastian followed suit, landing on his back and once again staring at those old, faded stars on his ceiling. They were so close to one another, Sebastian could almost feel the warmth of Sam’s body heat radiating off of him.
“What booth is Abigail going to do?”
Sam didn’t answer at first, then Sebastian looked at him and it was enough of an answer as any.
He actually groaned out loud that time.