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Sebastian had barely stepped out of his room when he heard voices from upstairs.
He froze, listening intently for a second. One was his mother’s—no surprise there—but the other...he didn’t recognize. A guy, he thought, but beyond that, he had no clue.
For a second, he wracked his brain to try and decide what to do about that.
It wasn’t like having someone else there was terribly alarming, not when his mother ran her shop out of the front room. Besides, she was pretty friendly with the rest of the town, too, so they got visitors now and then. But...Pelican Town was small, and Sebastian knew the sound of everyone in it, and whoever this was, he didn’t know them. Him. Whatever.
He briefly entertained the idea of slipping back down to his room until the stranger left, and possibly skipping lunch entirely if necessary, but immediately realized that was a lost cause: his mother would have heard his door, probably, and she’d almost certainly hear it close, and then she’d come bothering him.
Besides...part of him was curious. Suspicious, too, but mostly curious. He wanted to slink over and see who it was, but it was impossible to do that without being seen being a complete weirdo. So. Different approach, then.
He took a breath to steady himself. Okay. This will be easy. Just slip past real quick, casually glance in, nobody will even notice you.
Stuffing his hands into his hoodie pocket, he took the first step.
Robin must have been waiting to pounce, though, because the instant his foot hit the ground floor, he heard: “Oh! Sebastian, come say hello!”
Fuck.
Exhaling slowly, Sebastian turned, reluctantly slinking towards his mother and whoever she was talking to. He flicked his eyes up, and stumbled a bit as he found himself staring at the most beautiful man he’d ever seen in his fucking life.
He was tall and handsome in a “pretty boy” sort of way, with light brown skin and deep pink hair (though, judging by his darker roots, it was obviously not a dye job he was too concerned with keeping up) pulled back into a low bun, and soft eyes the color of the sky.
He wore a slightly dirt-stained red jacket over a white shirt that showed off far more of his chest than Sebastian thought was fair, and smelled like cut grass. He looked like he was wearing fucking eyeliner. He was also looking Sebastian over, and Robin was talking, neither one apparently noticing or caring that Sebastian’s world had been...maybe not rocked, but at least knocked slightly askew.
“...is my son, Sebastian. Sebby, this is River. He’s the one I told you about, who just moved in to the old farm. Remember?”
River beamed, giving a friendly little wave with one hand. He wore a few thin, black leather bands around his wrist, one with silver studs. His nails were painted dark, and the paint was chipping in a way that went way too well with the dirt on his jacket and the worn knees of his black jeans. There was a bright pink band-aid around his thumb.
“Hello, Sebastian.” His voice was warm and pleasant. Sebastian could have listened to that man read a dictionary without regret. It probably would have been pretty soothing, if Sebastian’s heart hadn’t currently been trying to hammer its way through his rib cage.
“Uh.” Sebastian swallowed, his face warm and his throat tight. “Hi. Yeah, mom, um, mentioned that.” He hadn’t really been listening too much to the details at the time, and he scrambled now to recall any of them worth saying. “It was your grandpa’s place, or something, right?” Nailed it, successfully completed a social interaction, I am such a not complete failure at this.
“Right,” River agreed with a nod. “Haven’t seen it since I was a kid, so it’s been...different, coming back.”
“Oh, well. I bet.” Sebastian cleared his throat. “I guess, uh, you’ll be seeing a lot of us then. Mom, I mean. Because...probably going to need a lot of help...um, fixing up the place. Yeah.” His face burned. “Anyway, uh. I think you were...talking about something, so I’ll just...let you get back to it.” He backed out, waving loosely and trying not to look too much like he was beating a hasty retreat.
“Bye, Sebastian,” River called cheerfully after him, and Sebastian tried not to walk too quickly towards the kitchen. He exhaled a shaky breath once he made it and heard Robin’s voice from the front room; it sounded like they’d gone back to their conversation. Something about chicken coops.
I am the world’s biggest fucking idiot, Sebastian determined, briefly thumping his forehead against the freezer door before he opened it.
Be seeing a lot of us, really? He fished out a burrito, put it in the microwave, and sat down at the table to put his face down on top of it.
“...figure the hens deserve it,” he heard River say from the front room, all soft edges and warmth. “I gotta take care of my girls, you know? They’re good girls.”
Sebastian wondered if he told them that personally. He tried not to imagine it and failed, completely: River, all tall and gorgeous with his pretty voice and pretty hair and pretty face, patting a chicken on the head and telling her she was a good girl.
Lucky chickens, Sebastian thought, and muffled a groan into the table top.
“Once I can afford it, of course,” River continued, a bit sheepish. “I’m just getting a pricing idea right now.”
“Well,” Robin answered, “what if we do this. You’ve got a lot of wilderness to clear up on that farm, right? I bet plenty of it is usable. If you can provide most of the materials, I can give you a discount. Say...fifty percent? Think of it as a ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ present!”
The microwave’s dinging drowned out River’s exact words, but his voice was cheerful and bright. Sebastian dragged himself back over to the microwave and stared it down, contemplating the gauntlet of going back down the hallway to return to the safety of his room.
The alternative was that he stay here, and hope River was gone by the time he ran out of excuses to avoid him. That carried its own risk, however: his mother was busy, but Maru could walk in any time, or worse, Demetrius. But...
After a solid ten seconds of debate and the microwave prompting him with an insistent beep, he took his plate back to the kitchen table.
He half-listened (or at least, told himself he was only half listening) as River and Robin talked, discussing the ins and outs of upgrading a chicken coop without causing too much upset to its inhabitants. He tried very hard to look interested in his phone—just in case—and briefly considered texting Sam, but hesitated.
What was he supposed to say? Hey did you know that new guy who moved here, did you know a new guy moved here btw, is a total smokeshow, as if that’s an okay thing to do? Like holy shit, why is he on a farm and not being a model somewhere? Also, I think if I was a chicken and he called me his good girl it would actually fix me.
There was no way he’d get away with saying anything remotely in that realm without Sam teasing him to death about it. Abigail was also completely out of the question: she was worse than Sam. Sam knew how to show mercy, sometimes.
In the end, he decided not to say anything at all.
There was a brief interruption when the front door opened, and Robin introduced Maru. Sebastian cast his eyes towards the ceiling and wondered how unlikely it was that he could simply vanish, poof, right out of existence.
The feeling wasn’t helped any when he heard Maru chattering away, apparently hitting it off much better with River than he’d managed. Unsurprising. Maru did better with people as a general rule, and people liked her better anyway.
He at least spared a thought towards hoping she’d go to her room when she apologized for interrupting and excused herself, only to be disappointed as he heard her turn towards the kitchen instead.
Sure. Why not.
Maru stopped short once she saw him, blinking in surprise, then continued to the fridge, though she didn’t do a good job of hiding the way she kept staring sideways at him. Sebastian ignored her and pretended to be very invested in studying his phone’s apps, at least until she spoke up.
“What’re you doing up here?”
“Nice to see you too, Maru,” Sebastian answered flatly, and she snorted.
“You know what I mean.” He grunted in response, and she sighed. “Fine, be that way.” She rummaged around in the fridge for a moment, and Sebastian hoped that was the end of it, until she added: “Did you meet the new guy? River? He’s really nice!” She closed the door, gesturing with a bottle of apple juice. “And...good-looking, too. Didn’t expect that.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious, Maru,” Sebastian answered. “I also have eyes, you know.”
“Okay, fine. Grumpy. Stay here and sulk at your burrito.” Mercifully, she left it at that, and Sebastian exhaled a sigh of relief once he heard her door close down the hall.
Sebastian stood, considered the cathartic possibilities of loudly dumping his plate in the sink, and decided it wasn’t worth the extremely likely chance that it would attract his mother’s attention. Instead, he took as long as he could to clean it, listening for any further sound from the front room.
It had been quiet for a bit, now—maybe River had left while he was talking to Maru?—and Sebastian finally decided it was worth the risk. Steeling himself, he made his way back down the hall, casting a glance towards the front room as he passed it.
He almost made it.
“Sebby, there you are. Come here?”
Sebastian resisted the urge to sigh, following his mother’s voice. Luckily, she was alone, though the expectant look she gave him didn’t put him at ease.
“What’s up?” He glanced towards the door, and immediately tried to make it look like it was nothing but a casual, random movement that did not at all indicate that he was wondering what had happened to the ridiculously pretty stranger who had only recently invaded his home. He was pretty sure it didn’t fool her.
“I was just wondering what you thought of River, now that you’ve met him.” Robin beamed, her eyes searching as she leaned across her counter towards him. Sebastian shrugged.
“He seems nice, I guess,” he answered, and she made a sound in her throat that wasn’t quite a sigh but definitely sounded disappointed.
“You should say hi,” she said. Then, before Sebastian could point out he already had, she added: “Properly. He’s our new neighbor, after all! Maybe introduce him to Sam and Abby? Help him settle in here? I’m sure they’d love to meet him.”
“Sam will probably introduce him to Sam before I could,” Sebastian answered with another shrug. “Anyway, sounded like he was talking just fine to Maru. He’ll...fit in fine, probably.”
Can’t imagine why he moved here of all places, though.
Robin was quiet for a moment, before she sighed.
“Sebby...” He glanced at her, and she was frowning softly. “I just worry about you, baby. I think you’d get along really well with him, if you gave it a shot. Think about it, okay?”
Sebastian flicked his eyes towards his feet, scuffing his foot against the floor. “...’kay,” he said, “maybe.” Internally, he couldn’t imagine how in the world she expected him to carry on a successful conversation with that man, much less make friends with him. But trying to explain the futility of that to his mother was...well, a pretty futile endeavor in itself.
“Okay,” Robin answered. She straightened. “I’ll let you go, then.”
Sebastian nodded, briefly, then slipped back off downstairs, only exhaling in relief once he’d managed to close his door behind him.
It was fine, he thought. There. They’d gotten the introductions thing out of the way. And, more likely than not, he wouldn’t have to see too much more of River, so he wouldn’t have to figure out how to act like a respectable, normal human being around him. Easy enough.
Breathing out slowly, Sebastian made his way back across his room, and tried to put the whole thing out of his head.