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Sebastian sits at the edge of the dock, letting his legs dangle over the side while he stares out across the black ocean listlessly. A gentle rain soaks into his skin, but he pays it no mind.
Normally, he'd enjoy the feeling. It's cold embrace. Right now, he doesn't feel much of anything at all.
His eyes follow the turning waves, over and over.
Normally, it's comforting. That’s what he's always told himself. The vast expanse of the sea, a promise of more that lies beyond, a reminder of how endless and huge the world is and how he's so small. The thought of countless creatures living beneath the rippling surface, struggling through the dark, making it in the rough seas. It helps to take his mind off feeling so trapped. It gives him hope of going somewhere far. Far beyond that distant, vague horizon.
Maybe there's no people there. No land at all. Just a sprawling nothingness for him to become one in.
It probably didn't make sense to anyone else, but it comforted him. Normally.
Tonight, however, is nothing. He looks out, and instead of hope, he sees nothing. An endless void.
Instead of a reminder of his place or a dream of beyond, he just… wants out. Wants to become one with those waves. Wants to sink to the bottom of the depths and become fish food. Wants to let the harsh waters destroy him.
The world out there may be beautiful, but it's not for him. Nothing is for him.
The water looks so inviting.
At least the creatures might benefit from him, this way.
He wants out. He wants to become nothing. The nothing he already is.
And right now, sitting there, soaked through, arms stinging dully in the back of his mind, throat hoarse from his last smoke… he really can't see why he shouldn't. Why he should bother holding out. All those times he told himself to just keep going… he really can't fathom why. Why bother.
No one would miss him. No one would even notice.
He already barely exists. He's just a shadow. He's just a bag of bones, sitting there on the dock, already fading from reality. Barely held together. What difference would it make if he were to just… slide off the edge? Plunge into the waves’ cold embrace?
He would just disintegrate and all they’d find would be his clothes. Although, those are so worn they might just turn to dust too, just like him.
There'd be nothing left. No one to look for them anyway.
No one needs him, and he doesn't have anything keeping him here.
The rain picks up, waves thrashing in the gust of wind.
He stares into it. Stares and stares. The inky void stares back.
He closes his eyes.
And jumps.
*
Elliott leans back in his chair with a sigh, tipping his head back.
His back and neck are all stiff from sitting in one position so long, yet his page has nothing to show for it. Blank.
The words just aren't coming to him. He has no ideas, nothing.
He stares up at the panelled ceiling of his cabin. Then, stretching his arms and cracking his neck, he decides to get out for a moment of fresh air.
Clearly, sitting here hasn’t been working.
It’s just… there are abstract thoughts, floating around in his mind, but that’s all they are. Vague concepts. He can’t seem to grasp any of them, and none really jump out, none take hold and expand and flourish the way he needs them to. No matter how he tries, he can’t grab one and force it to, either.
A break would definitely do him good.
It isn’t until he’s stepped outside that he realises it’s raining, the pitter-patter of drops on his rickety rooftop having long been faded into the background as white noise. It isn’t torrential, so he sticks it out, folding his cardigan further around himself.
With another sigh, his breath leaving a wispy white trace, he leans back against the front of his cabin and stares up at the sky. His eyes find the white glow of the moon behind a thinner patch of clouds, fixating on it.
How is it that there’s so much beauty here, so much natural inspiration, and yet his pages remain dry?
He pushes off the wall to head closer to the sea, turning his attention to the tide instead.
The rain begins to pick up speed, drenching him, but he welcomes it. Perhaps that can wake up his creative juices, shock his brain into co-operating. He ambles along the edge of the beach, letting the hypnotic motion of the waves and the rain and the clouds fill his mind, until—
Splash!
That sounded much too loud to be rain. Could it just have been a larger wave crashing upon the shore further up? For some reason, Elliott feels doubtful of that. He stops still in his tracks, waiting for more, but now the constant roaring of the waves and rain feel deafeningly silent. Perhaps it was just a large fish or other such creature breaking the surface. He’s probably just searching for some drama seeing as his own brain is so devoid of any. Nevertheless, something compels him to go forward just to check.
It had sounded like it came from the end of the dock. His soaked boots are heavy as they tread on the wooden planks. He speeds up, skipping along them until he reaches the end.
It’s hard to make out, what with the weather and the dark cloak of night, but—there’s a dark shape down there. The water disturbed differently to the rest. Thrashing—no, drifting. Sinking.
A possibly human figure.
Elliott doesn’t think too much.
He sheds his cardigan, takes off his boots, and dives in.
Sure enough, his hands eventually find the soft cotton of cloth, finally getting a grip on a bony wrist, then their thin frame. Carefully, he hauls them back through the churning water, getting their head above water so he can swim them back to the shore.
The person is unresponsive, limp, and Elliott only hopes he wasn’t too late.
As soon as they’re ashore, he lays them down and begins CPR, as best as he can.
After a few breaths, he allows himself to really look at the stranger. He’s small, at least compared to himself, almost frail, like he might crumble if Elliott presses too hard—which, he kind of has to right now. One hand almost easily spans the width of his entire chest. His dark hair is plastered over a pale face, dark clothes to match shrouding the rest of him.
Elliott leans down again to press his mouth to his, alternating over and over until the boy finally gasps, convulsing.
Quickly, Elliott rolls him over, just in time as the stranger throws up. He blinks a few times, heaving, but then passes out again.
At least he’s breathing now. Elliott does nothing but watch the rise and fall of his chest for a few moments, just to make sure.
Then he carefully pushes aside the wet locks of his hair to reveal his face.
The pale moonlight illuminates his pale skin. Sickly pale—shit. Elliott runs for his cardigan, draping it over the man and taking him into his arms to bring him inside out of the cold and wet.
Once inside, he realises how cold he was himself, and stokes the fireplace, getting new, dry clothes for the both of them. In the firelight, he lets himself admire the stranger once more.
He vaguely recognises him—yes, he’s the carpenter’s boy; he’s seen him around at town festivals now and again. He always hovers back by the edges, out of sight, but Elliott remembers seeing a dark figure around. Sebastian, he thinks he remembers Robin telling him once.
Sebastian.
He’s never paid attention to him before now. But here, bathed in warm firelight and shrouded in tragic mystery, Elliott finds him magnetic. Beautiful.
He’d seen the scars on his body—had to treat and bandage a few before getting the new clothes on him—and he can guess why he was in the ocean so late at night, in the middle of a rainstorm. It clearly was no accident. It’s painful and it’s sad but it’s also—beautiful.
Colour starts to return to his cheeks and lips, little by little, and his eyes twitch behind closed lids. Elliott just tucks the blanket further around him, but doesn’t otherwise disturb him, doesn’t try to wake him yet.
His mind is racing though.
Could this be the key to his long elusive novel?
When Sebastian finally stirs, making a croaky little sound in his throat and blinking open his pretty, dark eyes to meet his, Elliott is almost sure he will be.
*
“Where am I?”
Sebastian puts a hand to his throbbing head. His thoughts are all jumbled, struggling to make sense of what happened.
“Take it easy,” Elliott hushes, reaching to help where Sebastian was trying to sit up. “You’re in my cabin. I found you in the water.”
Sebastian leans back against the headboard and rests his hands in his lap beneath the blanket. He picks at his nails, eyes downcast.
“You weren’t supposed to save me,” he mumbles.
“Maybe it’s fate that I did.”
Sebastian scoffs.
Is he glad to still be alive? He isn’t sure. He still doesn’t feel much.
And Elliott? He hardly knows the man. He is sure they have absolutely nothing in common. He's almost completely opposite to him in every way—tall, broad, confident, good with words. But there’s part of him… maybe there’s a small part of him… that warms at being saved. At being taken care of. Of getting to be small in a different way to how the ocean makes him feel.
Even by a near stranger. It’s not like he ever got it with anyone else.
He picks harder at his cuticles, pulling the skin until it bleeds and letting the sting bring him back to reality.
“I don’t believe in fate,” he mutters.
“Is that so? We make our own fate, then. I wanted to save you. I’m glad I did. You can decide what to do with that.”
Sebastian blinks. He doesn’t have an answer, so he keeps quiet.
Elliott brings him a glass of water and some snacks.
“You must be feeling weak. Try to eat something, and get some more rest. I can take you to the clinic in the morning, or just walk you home if that’s what you want.”
“No one wants me there…” Sebastian says without thinking.
“Well, it’s up to you. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you’d like, too.”
Sebastian looks up in surprise, immediately shaking his head.
“No, I don’t— I’ll go.”
This place is hardly big enough for one. He couldn’t impose on someone like that. But then… the thought of his dark, stuffy basement…
It’s fine. That’s what he’s used to. He’ll continue going as usual. This was just a weird… blip.
Or maybe next time he’ll pick a better method. Where no one can save him. Maybe he’ll drive straight off that cliffside the next time he rides out to look at the city.
He nibbles at the crackers Elliott gave him.
He allows himself to take his bed for one night, and heads back home in the morning, back in his own clothes.
Sure enough, no one noticed he was gone.
He tries to pretend it doesn’t affect him.
He inevitably ends up back by the ocean on a rainy day again, but this time, the presence of the cabin weighs heavily on his mind. He’s barely aware of the water at all, thinking only of Elliott and the cabin. His eyes keep fighting to stray to it.
Which is ridiculous, right? Why should he be?
Maybe he didn’t thank him well enough? He did save his life, after all, and Sebastian hardly acted grateful. He bites his lip, thinking.
Ultimately, he doesn’t go to him. He trudges back up the path to his home in the mountain, to his lonely basement room, and curls up under his covers.
His trips to the beach become more frequent, though. And soon, on one of those times, as was bound to happen, Elliott comes out to find him there.
Sebastian freezes, staring at him.
Something inside him flutters at the smile Elliott sends him, his hair blowing majestically in the wind. With that, he knows it’s something more than just expressing his gratitude that keeps pulling him here, towards the older man.
There’s something… something new kindling within him.
Maybe the cliffside, or the bottom of the ocean, can wait. Just a little while longer.