Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nothing ever changed in Stardew Valley. 

From up in the mountains down to the seashore, it was as if time was permanently paused over the entire city, a continuous loop of mornings and nights always ending at the starting line. The power of monotony in the valley was so overwhelming that even the objectively unusual, like a wizard living in a tower on the outskirts of town or a random burst of green rain sweeping over the land, managed to get integrated into the villagers’ daily routine to the point it was barely worth mentioning.

And the thing about routine is that it’s not inherently bad, either. Everyone tends to fall into habits, and there’s a certain comfort in being able to fall back on them - you only need one forced change into your daily schedule to realize how comfortable it used to make you - but routine can also be stifling at the best of times, and downright miserable at the worst.

Which is all to say Sebastian’s life was pretty miserable.

It felt petty to say that sometimes, with a roof over his head and food in the fridge, but that didn’t stop it from being true. Some people found fulfillment in their work or relationships, but Sebastian had a handful of freelance jobs (when he had it in him to seek them out) and a grand total of two friends (when he had it in him to seek them out), which narrowed things down significantly.

There was always this mismatch in him, this disconnect between the impulse to do something and the inertia of doing nothing. His bike was the bridge between the gap, in a way; there was always the possibility of just bolting when he was on it, just taking off somewhere and never looking back, the wind on his face and his old life fading into the horizon at his back, and yet…

And yet. The bike circled around the mountain path and roared back into the garage, as it always did. Because nothing ever changed in Stardew Valley. Not the road that beckoned him, not the look on his mother’s face when he refused to join their family dinner, not the listlessness in his heart sitting by his computer at two in the morning.

Until one day, way out west in the abandoned old farm, something did change.

Sebastian first heard about the farmer from his mother - or rather, overheard her talking about him to Demetrius in the kitchen while he slipped out of the house to smoke by the river. Some guy from the city who just up and left his old life behind one day to take over his grandpa’s old farm, no money or skills or even much of a house to live in anymore, if his mother’s words were anything to go by.

His mind kept coming back to that as he watched the smoke swirl up into the warm spring air. The idea made him feel some sort of way, like something was stuck in his throat. Was it envy that the guy managed to do what he couldn’t (wouldn’t) (couldn’t) and just left his old life behind? Was it bafflement that anyone would choose to come to this hole of a town? Maybe neither. Maybe being faced with someone desperate enough to come to an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere just made him feel half-hearted about everything.

He snuffed out his cigarette on the sole of his sneaker and pocketed the stub, shaking his head slightly. Maybe some pool would clear his head.

—

Sebastian was just rolling out of bed to get some coffee when the farmer dropped by the next morning to introduce himself. The guy looked -  well, he kind of looked like Sebastian, in a way, and the thought brought that lump from last night back to his throat. The bad posture from sitting at a computer all day, the sallow skin from not seeing enough sunlight, the circles under his eyes. The guy (he definitely had a name that he definitely had mentioned, but it was early and Sebastian was hungover) gave a polite little nod and left, leaving Sebastian to stare off into the space he had been occupying in a haze for a beat or two before shaking himself awake. Something about the guy made him feel off-kilter, but whatever. It’s not like they’d be running into each other much anyway.

Except they did, because apparently the guy was just everywhere. He’d nod at him and Sam while running through the town square, make small talk with him when they ran into each other at the foot of the mountain, wave at him across the pool table at the saloon while making his rounds.

“I gotta commend the guy for putting himself out there,” Sam had half-muttered into his beer after the farmer left. “I don’t know if I’d have it in me.”

“I think he seems nice,” Abby piped up from the couch.

Sebastian hummed noncommittally in response, before taking his shot and pocketing the yellow ball Sam had been trying to get for the past 10 minutes.

“Aw, come on!”

—

It was a Saturday morning when he ran into the farmer again, more literally this time as he’d been storming out of the house after another fight with Demetrius. It was always something with Demetrius, like somehow Sebastian living in the basement and staying out of his way was still too much for him to put up with, and it mostly just rolled off of him but some days it stuck around like mold. Sebastian bumped hard into the farmer’s side, only managing to stay upright because the guy reached out and grabbed his arm on instinct, and the concerned frown on his face stung more than the impact.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Just thank him , he thought. Thank him and shrug him off and move on.

“Why do you keep talking to me? I barely know you” is what slipped out instead. Sebastian took advantage of the farmer’s shock to rip his arm out of the man’s careful grasp and stomp away, shamefaced and wrong-footed.

If Sam noticed anything, he kept it to himself. Sam was good at that, he thought, then felt like an asshole for the second time that morning. The whole day left him feeling like a 20-something teenager, angry and raw and lashing out at the people around him because he couldn’t fit into the only home he had. He thought of his bike in the garage, of leaving it all behind. He thought of the farmer’s face going slack with shock. He shook his head, banging on the keyboard until the noise cleared out all the thoughts in his head.

It was late at night when he trudged back home, the stress leaving him drained like he had run a marathon, but the cool night air was a welcome change from the damp heat of Sam’s room. Summer was approaching fast, whether he liked it or not.

He saw the silhouette of the farmer on the hill behind his house and his stomach dropped, the frustration having long since fizzled out and leaving only a vague sense of shame behind. The farmer seemed to notice him, pivoting in place and making his way down to the house’s entryway instead. Should he apologize? Or would that just make things awkward? Did the guy even remember it, or was Sebastian just overthinking things? Before he could find the answers to any of those questions, the farmer reached the entryway, stopping a few feet away from him.

“Hey,” he said simply, like Sebastian hadn’t bitten his head off last time they talked. He had a sharp, slightly metallic smell to him - probably from the mines, he realized, then wondered why he was thinking about it at all. It took him a moment to realize the farmer was holding out something in his hand. A piece of quartz.

“What’s this for?” Sebastian asked, taking it. The crystal refracted the porch light in odd angles, casting shadows on the pavement. The farmer shrugged.

“I found it in the mines and thought you might like it.”

“I do like it,” he said after a beat, smiling for what felt like the first time that day. “Thank you.”

The guy didn’t say anything, just gave him a pleased smile and nodded his head. He shuffled back, as if gearing up to leave, and Sebastian spoke up before he could think better of it:

“Hey, if you’re ever bored or whatever, you can drop by my room and hang out. I’m usually home, so just come over whenever.”

The farmer stared at him for a beat, just enough for him to question if that had been too much, before breaking out into a beaming smile. Oh , Sebastian thought idly, I don’t think I had ever seen him smile like that .

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, sure,” he drawled, aiming for disinterested. The farmer didn’t seem to mind either way, nodding happily.

“I will, then. Good night, Sebastian.”

—

Spring was almost over by the time the farmer made good on that promise. Sebastian looked up from his computer to see him standing awkwardly at the door frame, the straw hat he won from the egg hunt held with both hands in front of him.

“Hey, come on in. I’m just finishing up here, hang on a minute.”

A minute stretched into five, one syntax error all the way back at the beginning of the code making it not run properly, but at least it was done and Sebastian wouldn’t need to look at that part again anytime soon. He rolled his neck, wincing when it cracked, and leaned back into his chair, glancing at the farmer again. The guy had his hands behind his back now, standing by the couch looking over the posters on his wall. Sebastian remembered he walked kind of hunched back when he’d moved in, but that was long gone now. Maybe he should get a part-time gig at the farm himself to fix his own posture.

“Sorry about that, I had some work to do.”

“I like your decorations,” he replied instead, looking away from the wall. His complexion also seemed to have gotten better over time.

“My what? Oh,” Sebastian looked over his own wall, almost like he’d forgotten what was there, “right, thanks. It’s kind of a habit, I guess? I didn’t notice I’d stuck so much stuff up there.”

The farmer hummed in response, a pensive look on his face. Sebastian opened his mouth to ask about it, but a notification from Sam distracted him.

“Ugh,” he groaned out loud, making the farmer look back at him in mild concern. “No, it’s just Sam asking me to hang out, but I don’t really feel like it today.”

He braced himself for questions, a ‘why not’ or a ‘how come’ or, god forbid, a ‘did you guys have a fight’, but nothing came. Instead, the farmer just nodded like that was answer enough and continued to peruse his shitty old posters, squinting to make out the details in the low light of the basement. The lump he used to get in his throat went away the more he got to know the guy, but there was this undercurrent of nerves that seemed to stick around in moments like this, the adrenaline fading after bracing himself for a strike that didn’t come. It was an odd feeling, but not all that bad.

The knock on his door startled him out of his reverie, his mood souring further when his mother excused herself into his room with that one apologetic smile that promised he wasn’t gonna like whatever it was.

“Hi, honey,” she started, one hand gripping the doorknob. She somehow managed to treat him like she was always walking on eggshells, but also always trampling over his boundaries. Truly a feat. “So, I ran into Abigail at the store, and she said she’s coming by later...”

“Did you tell her that I’m working?” he replied in the most measured tone he could muster, already knowing the answer.

“I did, but she said she’s coming over anyway. If you guys need anything, I’ll be up in the store, okay?”

She left as quickly as she came, closing the door behind her, and Sebastian bites back his desire to scream out loud. Abby was great, she really was, and when you’ve been friends this long, it’s normal to start taking some liberties, but he just didn’t want to see her today. Not her, not Sam, not anyone. But does it matter to anyone what he wants? Clearly not.

He rubbed a hand over his face, opening his eyes to find the farmer looking back at him. Sebastian had almost forgotten he was there for a second. He braced himself again, sure that a question was inevitable now.

“What do you want to do with your career?”

Sebastian blinked. That… well, you couldn’t deny that was a question, but it wasn’t one he’d been anticipating. Still, he grabbed the change of topic gratefully.

“I’m saving up to move to the city. I like doing freelance work, you know? I don’t want to join the corporate rat race,” he said, glancing at him to see if there was any reaction. The farmer just nodded briefly to show he was listening. He continued, “and working from my computer is more comfortable than having to deal with people directly.”

The guy nodded thoughtfully, glancing at his computer screen. The blue light made his skin look sallow again, but from this close Sebastian could see the circles under his eyes were gone. He looked up, maybe sensing that Sebastian had been staring at him, and gave him a gentle smile.

“I get it. I should let you work, then. See you later, Sebastian.”

“Oh,” he replied, because he hadn’t meant it like that, but there wasn’t any way around that now, “sure, thanks.”

He went back to work, consciously not looking up until he heard the quiet click of the closing door. At the noise, he glanced up and sighed, feeling somewhat unsatisfied with the conclusion. Watching the blue light of his computer screen glinting off of his quartz crystal, he realized he missed the window for asking the farmer for his name.

Chapter Text

The cicadas shrieked as the morning dawned, spice berries clustered on the sides of the road, and all along the valley, the grass faded from a jewel green to a sunburnt chartreuse.

Summer had come to Stardew Valley, and Sebastian was having none of it.

If he was already reclusive on a good day, the warm weather made him a modern hermit, only leaving the relative coolness of his basement when strictly necessary. Maru once compared him to a snail who only popped out of the ground when it rained, which might have been funny coming from someone else, but coming from Maru just sounded like more thinly veiled criticism. It wasn’t an inaccurate assessment, though; the only time when it felt tolerable to go out was when the rain finally broke out and washed away all the dense humidity and stagnant warmth from the air, and the valley was empty and quiet save for the roar of the rain.

He spent a lot of time alone during summers. Well, he spent a lot of time alone in general, but it felt more acute during summer, when everyone else was more active and personable. Last year, his routine of only leaving the room to get food and use the bathroom got so dire that he almost forgot Sam’s birthday. Sam probably (definitely) noticed, seeing him show up at his doorstep halfway out of breath in the middle of the night, but he just slapped him on his back and thanked him anyway. Sam was just good like that.

Demetrius’ birthday was also sometime around summer, but he didn’t particularly make a point of remembering that one. When he was younger, his mom would buy Demetrius’ gifts (nine times out of ten, some sort of tool belt) and insist it was from all of them, but that excuse started wearing thin when Maru started getting her own money and buying her own gifts. He wasn’t sure if Demetrius even realized the shift, but it didn’t matter one way or the other. They didn’t have the kind of relationship to exchange gifts like that.

He didn’t really have that kind of relationship with anyone, he realized lying upside down on his bed one day. The realization barely fazed him, most of his focus on the noise coming from upstairs as he waited for his family to leave the house to crawl out of his lair and procure breakfast, but it was still there in the back of his mind. He’d try and find Sam some cool album for his birthday, or some adventuring magazine for Abby on hers, but most years they’d just buy each other drinks at the saloon and be done with it. It was probably a relief for them, too, not to have to think of a gift for him, because what do you even give to someone who doesn’t really want anything?

The answer, according to the farmer living west of Stardew, was a bunch of junk, apparently.

If everyone was more active and personable during summer, that went double for the farmer, whose energy seemed to just get higher and higher with each passing day. He’d taken to giving little trinkets to everyone he came across, from stuff he grew on his farm to things taken out of monster’s guts down in the mines to one memorable can of Joja Cola he scavenged out of a trash can. 

(Sam had stared at the can for a solid ten seconds, condensation running down his fingers as the can was somehow still cold, before just shrugging and wiping the lid on his sleeve before drinking it. Sebastian ranked the whole thing as one of the most disturbing things he’d ever witnessed.)

Sebastian had gotten an orange, an amethyst he placed next to the quartz on his work desk, a handful of blueberries, and what was apparently a rock crab from the mines.

“You can cook it like a regular crab,” the farmer said, his bare shoulders already dusted in freckles despite the early summer.

“I don’t know what about me suggests that I know how to cook a regular crab.”

“You just put it in a pot and boil it, Sebastian.”

“Just dunk it in like this, alive and all?” he asked, turning the creature over in his hands. The thing was heavy, even with the fake rock camouflage broken off, and it wiggled its bound claws ineffectually at Sebastian.

“What? No! That’s just cruel.”

“No, I’m pretty sure the meat goes bad really fast after they die.”

“Well, don’t leave it on the counter overnight or whatever, but there’s no way they need to be alive to be boiled.”

“Yeah, that does sound pretty messed up,” he said thoughtfully, glancing sideways at the farmer. Something seemed to click for him, his eyes narrowing, and Sebastian tried his best to keep a neutral expression.

“You’re just messing with me,” he said finally, his tone so offended that Sebastian broke out into a snort.

“Yeah, a little bit.”

“I see how it is. See if I bring you another rock crab now.”

“Were you actually gonna bring me more?”

“If you liked them, sure,” he replied with a shrug, like it was obvious. 

The implication of it made something tighten in Sebastian’s chest. He ducked his head, unsure of what his face was doing at the moment, and the crab stared back at him with its creepy little eyes, which was enough to break whatever weirdness had been circulating in his head.

“Maybe just leave the animals alone,” Sebastian said, forcing himself to make eye contact because everything was Fine. “I’m not that good with living things in general, I guess.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the farmer replied with an odd little smile, like they were sharing a secret, and that odd feeling in his chest grew stronger.

The farmer did keep it in mind, too. He seemed to keep an ever-growing encyclopedia of the villagers’ likes and dislikes in his head, cataloging the reactions to each gift he scrounged up, be it little Jas giggling and sticking a fresh-picked sweet pea behind her ear or Penny straight up refusing to touch the bundle of grapes on his outstretched hand.

For his troubles, Sebastian got an increasing selection of oddly shaped little rocks lined up on his desk. Abby tried sorting it by color last time she and Sam dropped by to play some games, but he changed the quartz back to its original place after she left; it had somehow become a habit to fiddle with it while he worked, watching the fragmented rainbows the light from the screen would make it cast on the ceiling.

—

For all that Sebastian complained about the monotony of the valley, he was himself a creature of habit. Everyone is, really, to a degree or another, but when your zone of comfort is barely big enough to contain all of you, it’s hard to force yourself to venture out of it - and if your environment isn’t elastic enough to accommodate these shifts, what even is the incentive?

This was all to say that he was perfectly fine with his hoodie in the sweltering 80ºF heat, thank you very much, Demetrius, and if he passed out from heatstroke or whatever that was entirely his own business, actually. He didn’t want to have to worry about sunscreen or bug spray or weird tan lines, and the idea of leaving the house without this usual layer was almost scary in a way, like it was revealing too much somehow. Which was stupid, yes, he wasn’t some sort of Victorian maiden who couldn’t flash their arms in public, but the feeling stuck; instead of someone shedding a layer of clothing, he felt more like a turtle being ripped from its shell, leaving all its vulnerable points exposed to predators.

So the hoodie stayed, and he was fine. It wasn’t even that warm down in his basement anyway, and the night air was cool enough up in the mountain to go out by the river and have a smoke in peace, so it was all fine. He watched the smoke swirl in front of him, unsure if he was getting a deja vu or if the scene was just too mundane, when the sound of footsteps beside him broke him out of his reverie.

“Oh,” said the farmer with a smile, “evening.”

He clearly didn’t have the same issue as Sebastian, seeing as his sleeves seemed to have been rolled up at the exact minute the clock hit midnight on the last day of spring and hadn’t come down since, and the freckles Sebastian had spotted a while ago seemed to have multiplied in the meantime; the farmer shifted down to roll up his pant legs and Sebastian blinked, only now realizing he had been staring. Maybe Demetrius had a point about the heatstroke.

He pulled a face, bringing the cigarette back to his mouth. Demetrius didn’t have a point about anything.

The farmer straightened up, pants folded to his mid-calf and work boots tossed to the side, and promptly stepped with both feet into the river.

“What are you doing.” Sebastian said it with no inflection, more a statement than a question. The farmer just smiled in response, waving a hand to beckon him closer. “If you’re gonna ask me to go swimming, don’t even bother.”

“I’m not gonna go swimming in jeans,” he laughed, like anything he had been doing up until that point was totally reasonable in comparison. “It’s just nice to cool off a bit. And it’s not like anyone is gonna see it.”

“I’m literally right here,” he replied, fighting back a smile. He found himself doing that a lot around the farmer, for some reason. The farmer clicked his tongue at him.

“You don’t count.”

His casual tone tipped the scale and the smile won out, curling the corners of Sebastian’s lips against his will. He tucked his chin into his chest, hoping his hair would cover up the worst of it, but dutifully shuffled closer to the farmer so the guy wouldn’t need to keep craning his neck to look at him.

The night was quiet, comfortable. Sebastian half-expected some sort of prompting, an invite to join him in the water maybe, but wasn’t all that surprised when it didn’t come. The farmer was pushy, but never above a certain threshold; the invitation was there, tacit and open-ended, in the empty space on the river shore, and it was that open-endedness more than anything that made Sebastian want to accept it. His heartbeat was loud in his own ears.

“How’s the water?”

“Pretty nice,” the farmer shrugged, looking down at his own feet. “I’m trying not to move around too much in case there’s any tadpoles around here.”

“You’re probably okay,” Sebastian replied, stepping on the back of his own sneakers and slipping them off before he could talk himself out of it. He fumbled with the hem of his jeans, his fingers slipping over the fabric as he tried to roll them up. It’s fine , he told himself. “They usually come out in late summer around here. There might already be some in that lake in the forest, though.”

“Huh. Is the water there warmer or something?”

“Probably, yeah.”

The farmer hummed, nodding as he kept his eyes down at his own feet. Was he doing that on purpose, to give Sebastian space? Or was he just overthinking things? The farmer shifted slightly, gaze drifting up to the night sky instead. The lack of expectation was comforting either way, but maybe it was okay to assume in the quiet of his own head that it was on purpose.

With that thought in mind, Sebastian grit his teeth and stepped forward, feet sinking into the soft ground of the river bank. The farmer kept his gaze firmly in the sky, but Sebastian could see him biting back a smile from the corner of his eye.

—

On the day of Sam’s birthday, at 3pm sharp, Sebastian knocked on the door of 1 Willow Lane with one hand while trying to balance a small stack of pizza boxes in the other. The door opened a smidge, Vincent’s face peeking at him from the crack.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

The kid stayed where he was, blinking up at him. Sebastian blinked back at him, bemused.

“Is your brother home?”

“Yeah.”

The kid still didn’t move. Sebastian felt the sun burning the back of his neck.

“Can you go get him?”

“Sam!” he yelled as he pivoted back into the house, almost giving Sebastian a heart attack. Children, man.

A few seconds later, Sam showed up at the door, looking like he’d just gotten out of bed. He looked at Sebastian, then down at the pizza boxes, then back up at him.

“Dude,” he said with a smile, and Sebastian was already regretting the whole thing.

“Yeah, yeah, happy birthday or whatever.”

Sam still looked disturbingly like he might try to ruffle his hair or something horrid like that, but he was maybe willing to concede to himself that it was a definite improvement over Sam’s last birthday.

—

Finally, finally , summer rolled to an end. Each degree the temperature dropped lifted Sebastian’s mood directly, almost like the two were inversely proportional by some law of nature. By the time the sun set on the final day of summer, standing there at the docks with the rest of town waiting for the jellyfish to float by, the wind was so cool against his skin he took a moment to close his eyes and just sink into the feeling. All the noise faded into the background, the creaking of the wood and Vincent's steps as he ran up and down the dock, and for a quiet moment, Sebastian just existed.

He breathed out and opened his eyes. The pitch-black water rippled in the wind.

“It’s really exciting, isn’t it?” he heard Abby saying to someone, the words barely registering as he continued to gaze into the water. Maybe it was worth suffering through summer for this moment, for the grounding relief of the cold weather and this quiet night. He pursed his lips, thinking it over. Well, maybe not to that point, no. But maybe this moment made the rest more tolerable in hindsight.

The wood creaked again, and the farmer appeared at his side with the usual smile.

“Hey.”

His sleeves were finally down again. Sebastian wasn’t sure why that thought was relevant.

“Hey.”

“Did you see any jellies yet?”

“Me? No, why?”

“You were gazing pretty intensely at the water there.”

“Ah,” Sebastian nodded, considering for a second telling him what he’d been thinking about, the quiet feeling that had settled into his bones. Just then, Vincent’s foot got caught between two planks as he ran around and he fell, almost smacking his face into the wood. Sam fretted over his brother, who didn’t look too broken up about the incident, and Sebastian shook himself a bit. Not really the place for this kind of talk. “I did think I saw something, actually. Not a jelly, though,” he glanced at the farmer, who looked curiously back at him, “something bigger. Darker.”

He stared back at Sebastian, his eyes narrowing even as Sebastian tried his very best to keep his expression as neutral as possible. Maybe he’d been spending too much time with the guy. He was starting to catch on to all of Sebastian’s tricks already.

“Ah,” he finally replied, nodding to himself. “Are you afraid that shadow is gonna eat your toes?”

The laugh that sprung up in Sebastian’s throat caught him so unprepared he almost choked, waving his hand at Sam when he looked over in concern even as he kept coughing. The farmer, curse him, just laughed at his predicament, his sunburnt nose scrunching up at the force of his smile. Then his expression changed suddenly, going slack with shock and then opening up in wonder, and Sebastian looked behind his back to see the telltale glow of the approaching jellyfish. He chanced another look at the farmer, who was looking out into the water like he’d never seen anything like it (which, in fairness, he probably hadn’t), and shuffled a bit in place, leaving a spot open beside himself. An invitation, tacit and open-ended. He kept his gaze on the water as he waited for a beat, then two. On the third, the farmer stepped forward, settling quietly beside him as the wind picked up again.

Chapter Text

Fall rolled around as it always did, painting the whole valley in a thin layer of sepia. Fall would usually find Sebastian by the riverbed after the morning fog had died down, but since that old boulder broke down in the summer and cleared the way up to the train tracks, he’d find himself there by the station almost as often. There was something almost hypnotic about walking on the rails, the rhythmic clanging of rubber on metal barely audible over the roar of the mountain wind, the rails themselves stretching endlessly into the dark on each side of him. If the road was a comforting thought, a vague idea that he really could set out on his own whenever he chose, the railroad was its sobering counterpart; how far out could he really go on his own? How far until it was too far to turn back? What would be lurking there, in the dark, as he ventured into its gaping maw of his own free will?

Well, a train, for once. Sebastian shook his head and stepped out of the rails, leaning against the old train station and trying to block the wind to light his cigarette. Trains were loud enough that you didn’t really risk one sneaking up on you unannounced, but if you were stuck in a tunnel miles away from home, the noise was probably just enough of a warning to give you time to panic. It was another way out, yes, one that was the opposite of the open road in almost every way - but still there was something about the place that kept him coming back, gazing out into the darkness long after the sun had set.

Something else had shifted in the past months, something harder to point at but undeniably there. Something in him, maybe. He felt it when he talked to Sam, how it was easier now to confide little things about his home life that felt not important enough before; he felt it when he worked on his bike, less of an anxious drive to keep it ready to go and more of a comforting static of not being alone with his thoughts for a while; he felt it whenever he saw the farmer climbing up the mountain path from the town after running his chores (even though there was no way that was the fastest route back to the farm) and had to bite down on the filter of his cigarette to keep from smiling.

He felt it when he looked at Abby.

On some level, he always thought he’d end up with Abby. She was always the one person in town that felt like she was like him in a way, in any way, who had the same kind of interests and the same kind of mismatch with the valley. It was always so easy to look at her and just imagine that she’d see it too someday, how they’re the only people in town who get it , how they were just meant to fall into step with each other.

But the thing was that this idea of Abby that had lived in his head for so long just wasn’t Abby. He was sitting in the salon one day, listening to her and Sam discussing ideas for how she could join the adventurer's guild without her parents knowing, and the image of her in his head blurred and shifted like staring at an optical illusion until it snapped into focus, unfamiliar and real. Did they ever talk about anything more serious than arcade machines or mild complaints about their parents being naggy? Did he ever even wonder about it, about what her worries and hopes and dreams were? The more he tried to find in common with her, the less were things he actually knew about Abby, and the more turned out to just be his own conjectures of an ideal partner that he’d pushed onto her as the most viable candidate. He looked at her profile in the low light of the salon trying to find something to prove him wrong, something that showed he had been right before and him and Abby were still definitely meant to be, but the exercise just left him feeling empty and confused.

“You can just tell your mom you’re gonna hang out at my place instead,” Sebastian heard himself say, his mind still half stuck on the fact that maybe he wasn’t gonna end up with Abby and that maybe he didn’t even want to, “when you wanna head up to the mines.”

“Are you sure?”

He shrugged, unsure how to answer. How would he have answered a month ago? Two? Would he have jumped at the chance to be helpful? The idea of him jumping for any reason seemed implausible, but if the situation at hand was any evidence, he probably wasn’t the most self-aware person in Pelican Town.

He was also kind of a shit friend, just in general, but he was working on that. Kind of. It should be easier now that he knew there was a problem to fix, anyway.

“Oh, you should ask the farmer about it,” Sam said, startling Sebastian for a second before he realized he was talking to Abigail and hadn’t, in fact, developed clairvoyance in the past five minutes. “I’m pretty sure he is in the guild.”

“Yeah, they told him to kill like, a thousand slimes.”

“Will I need to kill a thousand slimes too?” Abby asked with a frown.

“If he had to, probably,” Sam reasoned.

“Shouldn’t take too long, though, there’s a billion of those things on every floor.”

“Oh, so you’ve been down there!”

“No,” Sebastian lied. She rolled her eyes at him, launching into her own attempts at going down the mines.

Abby, it turned out, was pretty cool.

It was still weird, trying to find a pace to interact with her without the expectations he always held in the back of his mind, but it wasn’t a bad weird. Half of the time he still wanted to just hole up in his room or up by the river and not see a single human person if he could help it, but he made more of an effort to be a proper friend to her now, telling Sam to get her into the band and covering for her whenever he saw her mom out in town while she was down in the mines. There were gaps he still didn’t quite know how to fill in practice, but in the privacy of his own mind, the shift from ‘his friend Sam and also Abigail’ to ‘his friends Sam and Abigail’ took less effort than he’d ever have assumed.

If anything, what really gave him pause was that there was a shift at all. He took to the garage to fuss with his bike, hoping it’d clear his head, but that one thought kept coming back whenever there was a lull in his rhythm. He’d spent years like that, with what wasn’t so much a full-fledged crush as much as it was the vague shape of one, a mold of the sort of life he’d probably have where the only figure that fit was his projection of Abby; a lingering quasi-feeling that vanished within the span of a week, leaving behind only the vague regret of time wasted. Had he changed in any significant way recently? He didn’t feel like he had. Maybe he was just half-hearted about all that too, and it only took a minute shift to bring the whole thing down.

Sebastian was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of footsteps, and a single glance down to the door of the garage showed him a very familiar pair of work boots. He pushed the creeper out from under the bike, squinting against the sun before the shadow of the farmer covered his face.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” the farmer replied, smiling down at him with a puzzled look on his face.

“Oh, you hadn’t seen my bike yet, had you?”

“I hadn’t. It’s yours, then?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian agreed quietly, lifting a hand to flick a bug from the license plate. “I like to go out sometimes, you know? Way out, far away from here.”

He chanced a look up at the farmer, almost nervous, only to find him already staring back. They both startled at the eye contact, the farmer breaking it off first and glancing off to the side with an embarrassed cough, and Sebastian felt his mouth start to move before his brain could even send the signal, his pulse loud in his ears.

“I could take you with me someday.”

The farmer swiveled his head back around, lips parting. If making (proper) friends with Abby was like a walk in the park, making friends with the farmer was a marathon; Sebastian’s heart seemed to agree, from the way it was hammering against his ribcage. The tips of the farmer’s ears were pink in the afternoon sun.

“If you’d like,” Sebastian heard himself say, his focus mostly on trying not to look away.

“I gotta be honest, motorcycles kinda scare me.”

“Seriously? From the guy who killed a thousand slimes?”

“I’m not at a thousand yet,” he tried to shrug, but fumbled back into position when that made the sun hit Sebastian’s face again. “Besides, I’ve never seen a slime with a motor.”

“That would be a sight.”

“Wouldn’t it?”

“You should come, though,” he circled back around to the topic, unwilling to let go. Maybe the road could help him make sense of the weirdness the farmer always brought out in him.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s okay, I’ll teach you everything you need to know before I let you do anything too crazy.”

“Oh, so I’m driving?”

“I mean, sure. Why, don’t you want to?”

The farmer looked consideringly at the bike, then leveled the same look at Sebastian, then back to the bike, like he was weighing all the pros and cons. It couldn’t have been more than a couple seconds, but it felt like time had slowed to a crawl as he waited.

“Sure,” he said finally, the pinkness in his ears spilling down to his neck. “I guess it’s not that bad if you’ll be there.”

What does that mean , Sebastian didn’t say. Because we’re friends? Just because you won’t be alone? Or because it’s me? Do you also feel like you just missed a step on a stairway whenever we talk, or am I just going crazy?

What he did say instead was,

“Cool.”

And the farmer smiled, that same smile like they were sharing some sort of in-joke that Sebastian wasn’t aware of, and replied,

“Cool.”

—

Abigail’s birthday landed on a Saturday, so he and Sam split her salon bill for the evening in lieu of any gifts. Halfway through a truly pitiful game of pool with Sam, the farmer strolled into the salon with a full pumpkin hoisted onto his shoulder, which he then proffered to an Abby that was barely holding back laughter.

“Happy birthday.”

The complete lack of inflection seemed to push Abby a bit too far and she broke down in giggles, the pumpkin big enough that she needed both arms to take it from him. She shook herself, trying to keep a straight face, before replying in an equally monotone cadence:

“Thank you.”

They nodded at each other seriously for a beat, but lost it and cracked up laughing soon after. It made Sebastian feel some kind of way, watching them have fun together like that, which was weird because he had spent the past several weeks thoroughly coming to terms with the fact that he actually wasn’t into Abby like that. He turned back to the pool table, trying not to feel like a petty child and failing pretty miserably.

“Hello.”

The farmer went around the pool table to talk to him, an easy smile on his face. It made Sebastian feel like more of an asshole for getting upset over nothing. He tried for a smile in response, hopefully landing somewhere near the area of ‘nonchalant’.

“Maybe a jack-o-lantern?” he heard Abby say from the couch, patting the pumpkin on the seat next to her.

“Oh, that’d be pretty cool,” agreed Sam, his back against the side of the pool table giving Sebastian and the farmer a modicum of privacy in the bustling salon. Sam was always good at things like that, whatever this was, and it proved to be the right call because the farmer glanced around before pulling something from his pocket and beckoning Sebastian closer.

“Gunther said it’s called a fire quartz,” he said quietly of the small red crystal he pushed into Sebastian’s hand, leaning down a bit to talk. He smelled like pumpkin, like cranberries, and like metal somewhere under all that, sharp and cold and familiar. He smelled like Sebastian should stop smelling him, probably. “You don’t have one of those yet, right?”

“I don’t,” he agreed in a similarly quiet voice. “Why are we whispering?”

“Oh, because I didn’t have a gift for Sam. I thought I should at least try to hide it so he won’t feel bad.”

There was a lot Sebastian could say to that, like how Sam wouldn’t feel bad about it, or how the farmer could have just gotten him a soda (from a vending machine this time, hopefully, and not the garbage can). He tightened his grip on the rock, feeling its sharp edges pushing into his palm.

“Why did you have one for me, then?”

“Because you don’t have one of those yet.”

The way he always said that kind of thing with no warning, like they were just normal things to say to someone, was something Sebastian might never learn how to deal with. He took a sip from his beer, hoping the liquid would get the words unstuck from his throat.

“I do now,” he managed, and because he wasn’t raised in a barn, added, “thank you.”

The farmer smiled in response, that same smile he always had in these situations, like they were sharing some sort of secret. It felt different now, however, with Sebastian actually in on the secret in question; it was tiny - inconsequential, really - but the heady feeling of it wouldn’t leave Sebastian for the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

Winter was a quiet season. As the dirty slush of early snowfall gave way to endless plains of pure white, a hush fell over the valley, as if sound itself was muffled under the thick blanket of snow. Rather than the gentle coziness of fall, winter was sharp and uncompromising, a barren landscape dotted with barren trees spreading in every direction as far as the eye could see.

Sebastian loved it.

It wasn’t very surprising that Sebastian had been born in winter; if anything, winter itself was more of a home to him than the valley, like his dark and lanky silhouette would fit right in with the spread of leafless trees by the riverbed. The biting cold made him feel more at home in his own skin than any family dinner ever had, and he often found himself stalling to go back inside long after the sun had set, a last lone figure standing in the dead of night.

Lone, save for the brief appearances of the farmer trudging out of the mines as Sebastian made his way home.

It made sense, Sebastian reasoned with himself, fiddling with his lighter and almost setting fire to his fingerless gloves. There was probably not much farming to be done in the dead of winter, so the guy had to find some other way to pass the time. 

Probably. 

Not that he spent any time thinking about that or anything.

…

Okay, so it was a bit weird that he hadn’t stopped by to talk to Sebastian in days. He wasn’t keeping track or anything creepy like that, anyone would notice if they went from seeing someone every single day to just complete radio silence, right? Especially considering the farmer never went more than a day or two without dropping by since he moved in. Had he said something wrong? Sebastian would be the first to admit he could be a bit of an asshole even on a good day, but he’d also like to think that at this point in their friendship (and if the word friends still felt almost ticklish inside his brain, that was his own business) that the farmer would be used enough to his moods to not take anything to heart.

Maybe he was just overthinking things again, inflating his own importance to soothe his ego. Maybe the guy just found something better to do than to try to humor some cantankerous dipshit who still lived in his mother’s basement. Most people in his life had, anyway.

Even that line of thought wasn’t fair, really. It was nobody’s fault that his birthday had landed on a snow day in the middle of the week; it’s not like Sam and Abby didn’t send him birthday messages, and it’s not like he wanted anyone to traipse all the way up the mountainside to give him a slap on the back, but it all just left him feeling a bit hollow. He had put in more effort this year, to be a better friend and more present or whatever, and it wasn’t like he did it to get anything in return, but consistently getting nothing no matter how much effort you put in felt a bit like trying to put out a fire by spitting on it.

Getting upset about it was frustrating in and of itself. Part of him felt like he had it coming for having expectations in the first place, and part of him felt like an overgrown teenager, blowing things out of proportion because he couldn’t get a grip on his own emotions.

Sebastian sighed, snuffing out his cigarette on the sole of his shoe. When he looked up, he saw the farmer standing by the entrance to the mine, his face barely visible in the dim lamplight; then their eyes met, and even from a distance it was easy to see the smile that broke through his face. Sebastian struggled to hold onto his bitterness, but he could feel it slip through his fingers as the farmer bound down the path like an overgrown dog.

“Hi,” he breathed as he reached Sebastian’s space, boots skidding dangerously in the snow. Sebastian reached an unconscious arm to help steady him, stopping before he could make contact. His hand hovered in the air for what felt like a beat too long before he put it down, confused about the whole thing.

At least he was confused on his own, since the farmer was too busy digging through his scuffed messenger bag to notice much of anything. From up close, Sebastian could see little ice crystals clinging to the woven threads of the farmer’s sweater - was that just from the short trek down the mountain path, or was it somehow snowing even down in the mines? Neither sounded very plausible, but with the tips of the farmer’s ears and nose also glowing cold-pink in the faint moonlight, maybe the latter wasn’t as unlikely as Sebastian assumed. Who’s to say all that happens down the mines, its darkness spreading miles and miles under the ground? It might as well snow somewhere, for all he knew.

The farmer paused suddenly, blinking up at him, the cold-pink of his face growing warm next to Sebastian’s fingertips; it was then that Sebastian noticed his body had once again moved on its own, his bare fingertips gently brushing the ice flakes off of the farmer’s hair.

“Sorry,” he said instead of walking directly into the freezing river behind his back, because he was an adult .

“It’s okay,” the farmer replied, then laughed at whatever face Sebastian was pulling. “Really, it’s fine. Look, here…”

And then he reached across the short gap between them to run his fingers over Sebastian’s hair. It was a lot, too much at once - the cuff of his sweater brushing against the shell of his ear, the mix of wool and stone cutting through the smell of his own cigarettes - and then it was gone, leaving Sebastian feeling like he’d left his body for a second.

“There, now we’re even.”

He smiled then, still pink and close, but Sebastian just felt uneven all over. Was he just touch starved? He’d never been a very physically affectionate person, but it was the best explanation he could come up with at this point. The farmer jolted in place, as if remembering something, and went back into scouring the depths of his bag. He uttered a quiet aha! as his search proved successful and emerged from the canvas monstrosity with a light blue crystal held delicately in his hand.

“Happy birthday, Sebastian! I’m glad I made it in time.”

The small, teardrop-shaped crystal glinted softly in the farmer’s outstretched hand. Sebastian reached for it very gingerly, only to almost drop it when his fingers came into contact with the farmer’s icy cold skin.

“Dude, your hands are freezing,” he said, clutching the crystal in his palm while his fingers gripped the ice block that was the farmer’s hand in shock.

“Ah, yeah, it can get pretty cold down there,” the farmer shrugged, as if ‘pretty cold’ was in any way an adequate descriptor, “but it’s where I usually find these, so…”

Sebastian paused, his hand twitching before letting go of the farmer’s.

“Are you…” he started, thought better, tried again. “Did you go look for these? Like, specifically?”

For me? He didn't ask, but it was still there, tangible in the air. The crystal felt like it weighed ten tons in his hand.

“You didn’t have one of those yet,” he shrugged again, but his voice was quieter now, the admission half-whispered into the winter air. “Besides, it’s your birthday.”

Maybe it was a good thing people didn’t make a big deal out of his birthday, Sebastian thought dizzily, his head spinning. If this was a regular occurrence, he might have died of heart failure before he even moved out of his mother’s house. His hands twitched again, and the pressure of the crystal against his palm set a spark through his veins. He felt impulsive, like he had to do something, anything. Shoving the crystal into his pocket, he started peeling off his fingerless gloves, turning them right-side out before tossing them at the farmer’s chest. He reflexively held a hand up to catch them, blinking owlishly at Sebastian and back down at the gloves in his hands.

“So you don’t catch frostbite or whatever,” he said, with the flimsiest excuse for nonchalance he’d ever produced.

“But it’s your birthday,” the farmer protested weakly, his tight grip on the gloves contradicting his words.

“It’s fine, it’s not like I gave you anything for yours.”

When even was the farmer’s birthday? It was nearing one year since he’d moved into the valley, so odds are it had passed already, right? Sebastian made a mental note to ask about it some other time, his pulse in his ears as he watched the farmer pull his gloves on. They were clearly Sebastian’s - the dark fabric clashed visibly with the farmer’s plain woolen sweater. Would other people be able to tell, too? The thought sent an inexplicable shiver up his arms. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken his gloves off after all.

“I still think birthdays aren’t for exchanging gifts,” the farmer’s voice pulled him from his thoughts, “but thanks, Sebastian.”

“To be honest, I’m kinda surprised you even remembered my birthday. In a good way,” he added quickly, realizing how that might have sounded. “Maybe impressed is a better word for it.”

“Of course I’d remember it,” the farmer said simply, like it was obvious.

“Yeah,” Sebastian agreed, shoving his now cold hands into his pockets, his fingers finding their way around the crystal inside. “Of course you would.”

—

Sunday afternoon found Sebastian lazing around in his basement with Sam, both bored out of their minds. It was truly a masterful balance between being too lazy to do anything, but too bored to do nothing; something about immovable objects and unstoppable forces, probably. It was also the story of Sebastian’s life, but that was neither here nor there.

“We could go…”

“Let me stop you right there, I’m not going anywhere.”

Sam sighed, working his neck and cringing when the joint cracked loudly. Everything sounded a bit loud down in the basement, with whatever little noise came from the shop being filtered down through layers of wood and stone and the rest of the house left empty for most of the day. Sebastian leaned back in his computer chair, feet planted on the floor and knees swaying side to side, just trying to think of something to do. The teardrop crystal glinted off the corner of his eyes whenever he pushed a bit too far to the right, but looking at it directly felt like losing somehow, so he kept his neck stubbornly craned away from it.

“Wanna play some Solarion?”

Solarion Chronicles: The Game was one of Sebastian’s favorite board games - not just because it was playable with just one person, though that did help. It was easy to get lost in the mechanics of it, trying to run it in the shortest amount of time or with the least amount of damage, finding all the items, beating the game with no items at all, anything and everything you could do with it. Sebastian had started reading about other players’ homebrew campaigns on a forum, the considerations they had when coming up with custom characters or their inspirations for modified quests, and it was all so engrossing he’d only noticed the time had passed when he heard the rest of the family waking up for the day on the floor above.

The farmer had asked him once what his career goals were, and he’d answered something about freelance programming. It was probably true then, but it didn’t feel true anymore. Freelance programming was probably more realistic, but ideally, it’d be fun to make games of his own someday.

And because he apparently couldn’t think of the guy without summoning him directly to his location, it was at that moment that the door to his room opened to reveal the farmer.

“Oh, hey,” he said, looking between the two of them. His hand was still gripping the doorknob as if debating whether or not to come in, so Sebastian decided for him:

“Hey, wanna play with us?”

Sam dutifully took the empty game box off the other chair and tugged it into place by the table before he could even answer, because Sam was good at noticing stuff like that. Sam was also good at noticing other stuff, like Sebastian’s black fingerless glove on the hand the farmer still had on the doorknob, and the look he gave Sebastian about it was pushing his fight-or-flight response towards punching him in the face.

“Shut up,” Sebastian muttered instead, and Sam laughed.

The game went by surprisingly easily, the farmer seeming to navigate the challenge almost instinctively. Did real life combat experience make you better in game fights? No, that was stupid. Real life combat probably wasn’t turn-based, for one. Still, it was a wonder that he’d found the room with the clones on his first try, let alone the wizard; by the time they reach the ending, Sebastian could already tell they’d gotten an A rating for the quest.

“I think that was the easiest time we’ve ever had with this quest,” Sam said in awe, which was fair because Sam’s character had died at least a dozen times when they first tried this one. “Maybe it’s easier with three people?”

“Maybe. It’s gotta be easier with one of each of the preset characters, I guess.”

“True.”

“Anyway, the three of us should play again sometime,” Sebastian said casually, not looking up to where the farmer sat at the other end of the table. “There’s other quests too, so.”

“Sure, that was really fun!” The farmer agreed, but the smile froze on his face when he saw the time on Sam’s phone. “Shoot, it’s that late already? Sorry, I have to run before Clint closes the shop. Let’s play again soon, though!”

And then he was gone before Sebastian could get a word in edgewise, the door clicking closed softly behind him. Sebastian started putting the game away almost mechanically, not making eye contact with Sam lest he took that as incentive to say whatever it was he was barely holding back, which was a very solid strategy for all the thirteen seconds in which it worked.

“So,” Sam started casually, leaning back a bit in his chair. “The farmer, huh?”

“What about him.”

It didn’t sound like a question because of how monotone his voice was. It also didn’t sound like a question because he didn’t want an answer. He could see Sam shrug in his peripheral vision, but kept his gaze on the task at hand.

“I kinda feel like I should be the one to ask you that, man. Are you guys like, a thing?”

Sebastian paused, box in his hands, blood rushing through his ears like a flood. The question wasn’t really unexpected, but that only made things worse.

“We’re,” he started, shook his head, tried again. “It’s not like that. He’s my friend.”

Because he was a friend. A pretty good one, even, who could tell when he was joking and when he wasn’t, when he wanted company and when he wanted to be left alone. He was fun to be around and he was fun to talk to because they were friends and it was all fine.

Except for the part where friends don’t usually make your heart feel like it’s trying to beat its way out of your chest when they smile at you. But other than that, it was all fine.

“But you want it to be like that.”

He looked up at Sam, who had by then more or less abandoned his pretense of casualness. His face was open, like he was trying to coax an anxious animal out of its burrow. Which might not be the least apt analogy, actually, but it was a waste of effort because Sebastian didn’t have an answer for him - he barely had an answer to himself, really.

“I don’t… know what I want. I’m not - I’ve never really been through anything like this? Whatever this is, even, I don’t know. I don’t know anything, man.”

Trying to put his thoughts in order felt like trying to grab onto smoke, the frustration and anxiety canceling each other out and just leaving him drained with the effort.

“Hey, no, it’s fine,” Sam said, tilting his head to try and catch his eye. “Sebastian. It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t feel fine,” he muttered, rubbing a hand down his face.

“Yeah, I can imagine. But you don’t have to know everything, you know? I know it’s easy for me to say from the outside or whatever but I think it’s fine to just figure stuff out as it goes. You don’t have to have all the answers to stuff as soon as they come up.”

Sebastian sat with those words for a while, digesting them long after Sam had also gone home. Confronting the whole thing still felt daunting, like a mountain he’d inevitably have to climb at some point, but maybe it was fine to start small, one rock at a time.