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fall
The campus is a sea of oranges and browns, warm colors sprinkled across the dull earth. Each leaf crunches noisily beneath Blaine’s feet as he walks, crackling like a fire lit aglow in the night. Autumn is, quite possibly, his favorite time of the year at Dalton—despite the drag of the beginning of a new school year, it signals something different yet familiar at the same time. A change. HE loathes the assignments and the routine as much as anyone, but there is still something fresh, almost overwhelming, about the pinch of the cool air against his skin and the tickle of a scarf wrapped around his neck.
Today is no exception. It is late September, only a few weeks into the semester. His hands are tucked into the pockets of his slacks, blazer buttoned snug around his middle, and every other step, someone stops to say hello, asks how are you doing, Blaine? How’s your history project coming along? Big plans for the Warblers this year? And he will take the time to pause, offer up a smile, splitting bright and genuine over his face. I’m great, he’ll say. Not quite, my brain just can’t seem to hold attention when it comes to the Antebellum South, will be his reply. We’re going all the way to Nationals, he’ll declare, his smile only widening. We’re going to win.
Not a single face is a stranger. This is Dalton; comfortable like a knitted sweater, enveloping his body as he sinks into the familiarity and revels in the sensation that is home. He may have been a transfer the year previous, but that word holds no meaning here. He is just Blaine Anderson, junior, student, Warbler lead. He is a Dalton boy, and he sports the crest with pride.
The outside of the main building is coated with ivy, a muted green that spirals up the brick walls and clings to it like broth to the side of a pan. Blaine still marvels in the movie-like quality of it all; the looming buildings, the clean-cut lawns, the smiling students. It’s so picture perfect that it almost isn’t plausible, except that it is, real and welcoming. He jogs up the stone steps to the front door of the building, fingertips smoothing over the brass doorknob, before he makes his way inside.
Instantly, he is overcome by the smell of some kind of spice, thick and tingling as it assaults his senses. It is nice, a bit like cinnamon but heavier, and Blaine inhales as he strolls down the hall, greeting the people as they pass. The walls are row upon row of neon bulletin boards, littered with fliers and photographs and announcements. He pulls off a slip for the yearbook committee, an upcoming open-mic night in the commons. And then his eyes come to rest on a simple, 8x11 notice, and his expression lifts.
The Dalton Academy Warblers invite you to audition!
All performance levels welcome
Only five spots available
Thursday, September 23rd @ 3:30 in the Senior Commons
Their signature emblem, a golden warbler surrounded by music notes, rests below the wording, and Blaine traces the outline of it with his thumb, the paper scratching against his skin. He still remembers his very first audition, the nerves that simmered low in his stomach and then climbed their way up his throat, threatening to cut off his air supply and making it nearly impossible to sing. But somehow, standing in front of those three council members, he’d found his voice. It clawed its way out of him with a force, rumbling and breaking away like an earthquake, all of his emotions and the pain of the months previous splitting open underneath him.
Being a Warbler had overridden all remnants of the terrified, utterly broken boy from the hospital of Blaine’s freshman year, and from the carcass, his real self had emerged.
He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to thank Dalton enough for that.
The faintest melody of hums suddenly reaches his ears, and Blaine’s fingers slip from the flier, his body floating on autopilot away from the board and down towards the end of the hall. As he approaches, the noises grow louder, swirling into music, a collection of harmonies and voices all blending into one perfect unit.
Blaine adjusts his tie one last time, and then he inside the senior commons.
“Welcome back,” Nick greets him. His hair is shorter this year, the dark strands no longer curling against the bottoms of his ears, but the lines around his mouth that emerge when he smiles are no less prominent. He motions Blaine into the fold, the music swelling around them, and all Blaine can do is grin.
“Welcome home,” he amends.
*
During Blaine’s sophomore year, the Warblers’ rise to Nationals had been cut short by a close second-place win at Regionals to the infamous members of Vocal Adrenaline. Yet he has no regrets. Wesley Montgomery had been the kind of leader who treated everyone with the same sense of respect and compassion an older sibling would, looking after them and doing his best to ensure their complete happiness. Even now, as Blaine is surrounded by navy-and-red blazers, cocooned in the comfort of being a Warbler, it feels a bit vacant, as if there is a ripped, flaying hole where Wes should be.
However, this also means that Blaine is now a shoo-in for the open council seat; Thad and David tell him that the group has already voted, the decision unanimous. Blaine will now clutch the beloved gavel in his hands, feel the smooth mahogany of the object beneath his fingertips. He is humbled by the reality of it.
There are twelve hopefuls auditioning this year, and only five spots. Blaine has never done this before, and he dislikes the idea of having to cut a handful of people. It feels too much like he is simultaneously snipping away at the chords of their dreams, detaching them and sending them barreling downwards into oblivion, never to be seen again. This is why he does his best to treat each candidate equally, his smile honest and his words sincere no matter the level of talent each boy possesses. He can see the gratitude in their eyes when he speaks to them, the small nods and the grateful upturns of the mouth, even as Thad and David tell them the final list will not be posted until the following week.
The final contender, though, is something else entirely.
He holds himself with a sharp sort of confidence, his back straight but his motions fluid in a way that suggest a self-ease and lack of modesty. This creates a graceful air about the boy, a cloud that swivels around him as he spins and side-steps, an ever-present smirk twisted on his mouth.
Blaine is captivated. He’s never seen this boy before—with his artfully spiked hair, piercing green eyes, and lithe form—but he realizes in a startling moment of clarity that he already wants to see him again. Desperately, in fact.
This is only aided by the boy’s voice, which is smooth and resonating, an accent to it that vibrates throughout the room and seems to swallow Blaine whole. The notes he sings are as effortless as the movements of his limbs. However, there is still something jagged about him, around the edges; a bit rugged, begging to be noticed and shaped back to precision.
Blaine doesn’t even comprehend that the audition has ended until the boy is staring at him, awaiting his response.
“Thank you,” he finally says, tone a bit breathless, and of course, the boy notices. His meerkat smirk widens, eyes indenting at the corners in an expression that has Blaine’s heart racing.
“Very well done, Sebastian. The list should be up by the end of next week, so you will find out about your standing then.”
Blaine darts his eyes sideways towards David, then re-centers them back to the boy in front of him.
Sebastian. An extravagant name, something intriguing.
It suits him, Blaine thinks.
*
“Hello,” a low voice rumbles from his side, and Blaine lifts his head, trigonometry homework abruptly forgotten.
His small table in the corner of the library has been invaded by none other than Sebastian, whose greeting floods over Blaine like cool water and washes away any previous train of thought. He blinks, takes in the knot of Sebastian’s tie, the long planes of his chest. The way his elegant fingers rest almost absently against the back of Blaine’s chair.
“Do you mind if I sit?” the boy adds, and Blaine’s nod is stilted. He watches anxiously as Sebastian slips into the chair beside him, crossing his legs beneath the table and reclining backwards so that he has a full view of Blaine.
The attention causes Blaine to gulp.
“I don’t believe we’ve properly met,” Sebastian is saying, his hand outstretched. “I’m Sebastian Smythe.”
“Blaine Anderson,” comes his stilted response. Their palms touch, and it is like something ignites beneath Blaine’s skin, slithering upwards and engulfing his body. He resists the urge to shudder, his throat drying out as Sebastian gives him that smirk, completely self-assured, masking a hint of amusement.
“Well, Blaine Anderson,” he drawls, Blaine’s name rolling like warm honey off his tongue. “It’s a pleasure. I’ve heard quite a few things about you.”
“Only good, I hope,” Blaine murmurs. His breath hitches as Sebastian leans forward, hand lifting again to rest along the edge of Blaine’s chair, and his fingers emanate heat where they lie only centimeters from Blaine’s thigh.
“Oh, more than good, believe me,” he confirms. There is something about the sparkle in his mossy eyes, a curious glint that tugs Blaine in and has him enraptured, just like a day or so ago in the choir room. It is almost like a warning bell, a bright SOS in the night, yet Blaine finds himself following the signal anyway, too caught by the color and shine of it all. The jagged exterior is still there, protruding outwards from around Sebastian like an impenetrable wall. It seems out-of-place here, at Dalton, where all guards are let down and everything is open.
Blaine suddenly wonders what’s brought Sebastian here, who it is that carved out the missing pieces of him. He marvels over the confidence, inquires as to what lies beneath it; how much more is there to this boy?
Thankfully, it is only September; Blaine has time to find out.
*
Sebastian’s name is at the top of the Warblers’ acceptance list. It isn’t a surprise. The boy strolls into his first rehearsal with that crooked smile and a minute wink, just for Blaine, that manages to have him trembling in his dress shoes even from the opposite side of the room.
He melts into the group, takes his place within the fold without batting an eye. There is no hesitation. The other new members seem cautious, a bit unsure; but Sebastian is content in his place, knows that he has been called back for a reason, and he lives up to that reason, indeed.
By the time rehearsal has finished, Blaine feels as if he is balancing on the edge of a livewire. His pulse flutters rapidly, the air burning as it rubs against the inside of his lungs, and there is a permanent scald on his back from where Sebastian has been watching him, gazing straight through him with those eyes of his. Something about the scrutiny has Blaine hanging back afterwards, waiting as the rest of the group clears out and leaves him alone with the tall figure standing across the room.
“You’re very talented,” Sebastian comments idly, heading Blaine’s way in four long strides as his hands dig into the pockets of his slacks. The heat crawls its way up Blaine’s neck, cheeks flushing red, and he lowers his head, his modesty already apparent.
“Thank you,” he mumbles. Sebastian’s laugh is gentle at his side, kind in a way that Blaine isn’t expecting. When he looks up again, their eyes catch, and something else inside of Blaine catches, too, the functioning of his insides stuttering to a halt.
“I’m not exaggerating,” Sebastian adds, inclining his head. “Your presence—it’s effusive. Even more so because you seem to have no idea that it is.”
“I’m…” Blaine begins, but the words get mangled in his throat, his stomach twining into a ball of knots. “It’s not just me. It’s the group; all of us. We’re one.”
Sebastian’s eyes are dark from beneath his lowered brows, narrowing into slits, and he stares over at Blaine, silently appraising him. “You are something else, Blaine Anderson,” he says quietly.
“I could say the same about you,” Blaine retorts, the words slipping out unbidden, and he jolts when he realizes that he’s spoken.
Sebastian merely smiles.
“Care to join me for coffee?” he asks, hardly missing a beat. “I’m thinking we should get to know each other a little better.”
And Blaine can’t find it within himself to refuse.
*
As it turns out, Sebastian is a man of many, many layers, and peeling them back is much more difficult than Blaine has been expecting.
But he’s getting there.
September morphs into October, which bleeds into November; the ground is coated with fallen leaves, crisp and dry, and the air is colder, has a bite to it that was not there before. Blaine finds himself spending more than what could be considered a normal amount of time with Sebastian, their heads ducked low as they chat or the backs of their palms brushing as they walk. Their budding something often has a heat pooling low in Blaine’s stomach, the way that occurs only due to something exceedingly pleasurable. He enjoys the sensation.
Sectionals falls during the first week of December, and the Warblers are bubbling with excitement at the prospect of the upcoming competition. They rehearse with a renewed vigor as the day approaches, fine-tuning their harmonies and running their dance moves over again until they can all but perform the numbers in their sleep. The hard work pays off. They cinch a first-place victory with ease, the crowd all but careening to climb up on stage and join them. And when Blaine puts his hands on the trophy, the metal cool and glistening under his touch, it sends a shock through him, unlike anything he’s felt before.
He’s done this. He’s helped them to make it here, and it feels empowering.
When he catches Sebastian’s eye over the tops of the group’s heads, the other boy simply grins at him, pearly-white teeth glinting beneath the beating stage lights.
I told you, he is saying. Blaine can only shake his head in acceptance, the flush of victory swelling through him.
*
The after-party is quite the affair, with music and laughter and drinks, the senior commons all but bursting with energy. Blaine bounces from point to point, chatting for a few minutes with Jeff and then shuffling over to say hello to Jon, to congratulate Nick on his solo, and on, and on. There is a plastic cup in his hand, but he barely notices it, his body already thrumming with the tune of whatever song is playing, the notes pounding and reverberating through his chest.
An hour or so later, he has taken up residence near the wall, giving himself a chance to calm down and willing the flush to fade from his cheeks. A warm palm settles against the dip of his spine, causing him to jerk in surprise, and when he gazes back over his shoulder, Sebastian is there, his chest hovering against Blaine’s back as he smiles down at the boy in that wicked way of his.
“You doing okay, there?” he asks. He has to lower his head to be heard over the music, mouth ghosting along the edge of Blaine’s ear, and his breath is hot, forcing Blaine to shiver (and this time, he doesn’t try to hold it back).
“I’m great,” Blaine breathes, finally turning around so that they are pressed front to front, his neck craning backwards so that he can meet Sebastian’s darkened gaze. “Are you?”
Sebastian hums in response, his fingers coming up to gently pry the cup from Blaine’s grasp so that he can steal a sip of whatever liquid that hides inside of it. Blaine is dazzled by the bobbing of his Adams apple as he swallows, a drop of sweat glistening against the hollow of his throat, and when he lowers the cup again, Sebastian’s lips are wet, sparkling in a way that has Blaine craving to feel them against his own.
Something crackles between them, crisp and alive, and Sebastian is suddenly looking at him, his eyes hooded in a way that Blaine has thus far only seen in his imagination.
“Blaine,” Sebastian utters, gruff and full of want, and Blaine says nothing, instead extracting the cup from Sebastian’s hands and placing it on the table beside them before he glances back up at the boy, eyelashes disguising the glow of his pupils in the dim room.
“Sebastian,” he counters, and Sebastian must take it as an invitation, because he is then reaching out, his fingertips hot and calloused against the side of Blaine’s face.
The world drops away, everything from the voices to the music around them fading to a dull thump, and Blaine can taste the salt on his lips, his shirt sticking to the lines of his shoulder blades. Sebastian’s head lowers, their foreheads coming into contact, their noses touching, and then his mouth is fleetingly touching Blaine’s own, a scarce pressure that already has Blaine reeling.
He slips his hands out, clutches at Sebastian’s waist. “Please,” he mewls, his top lip catching on Sebastian’s bottom one. “Kiss me.”
This time, Sebastian doesn’t hesitate. He brings their mouths fully together, Blaine’s lips immediately parting as something explodes inside of his chest and his eyes fall shut. Sebastian’s tongue is slick, probing the heat of Blaine’s mouth in an unforgiving manner, but it feels incredible, a myriad of sensations that are only heightened by the build-up. It feels like they’ve been waiting to do this forever, and now that they are,nothing else matters. Sebastian crowds Blaine back into the wall, uncaring as to whether the rest of the room is watching them. His teeth scrape the flesh of Blaine’s lower lip, his palms traveling the curves of Blaine’s shoulders, his arms. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of Blaine’s pants and simply rests them there as they continue to kiss, desperate, intimate, and they only separate when Blaine wrenches backwards to suck in a deep breath, his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Sebastian’s mouth is swollen, almost obscenely so, as it opens into a small grin, something like an invitation. He unravels his hands from Blaine’s belt, grabbing onto his wrists and tugging him away from the wall in a silent question. As usual, Blaine can’t be bothered to say no.
*
winter
The beginning of the second semester is like a muffled version of the first, the greetings more lethargic, the efforts of getting back into the swing of things less valiant. The campus lawns are blanketed by a fresh coat of January snow, white powder than smothers the roofs and everything in between.
Still, returning to campus fills Blaine with that prominent concept of belonging, and he drifts along the paths with the tiniest of smiles on his face. He enters the hall that contains his dorm in a flurry of wind and water, stomping his boots clean against the mat and then meandering along until he reaches room B12 at the end of the hall, his fist rising to thunk lightly against the wooden door.
It has hardly cracked open when Blaine is suddenly being yanked inside, his back hitting the wall with a bang and a warm body covering his. The motion is so quick that he can’t help but laugh, and then Sebastian is silencing him with a kiss, his rough palms already tugging at Blaine’s layers, meant to shield him from the cold.
“Hello to you, too,” Blaine teases as they part. Sebastian scowls, the expression playful, before his fingers move to unwind the scarf from around Blaine’s neck, the digits zinging as they flit across Blaine’s cool skin. Blaine takes the opportunity to scan his gaze over his Sebastian, who looks no different from before. His hair is a bit flattened on one side of his head, as if he’s been wearing a cap, but other than that, he is still bold and a bit rough around the edges, and still so very, very Sebastian.
“You’re freezing,” Sebastian mumbles in place of a hello, his palms hiking up the front of Blaine’s sweater. “I’d say we should get you warmed up, don’t you think?”
*
They aren’t really boyfriends. Blaine does his best not to think about it in those terms, because Sebastian has never expressed any semblance of wanting to be. And besides, they don’t do any of the typical boyfriend-esque things (well, besides the sex, of course). They don’t go on dates, they don’t murmur sweet nothings into each other’s ear; and they surely don’t say I love you, or anything of the sort. There are moments, strikingly brief, in which this reality will catch up to Blaine, and it will crush him, but only until the inevitable second in which Sebastian finds him and soothes him with gentle kisses and reverent touches.
It doesn’t bother him, not really. At least, this is what he tells himself, and it seems to work, most of the time. It isn’t until February rolls around, and the student body is vibrating with nerves about the upcoming holiday, that Blaine realizes he might possibly want to celebrate it.
With Sebastian.
And then, again, he attempts not to sink too far into his disappointment when February 14th comes and goes without so much as an acknowledgment of it. The cheesy card and the stupid teddy bear that Blaine had bought on a whim sit untouched inside of his desk drawer, and he tries to be appeased when Sebastian gives him that dumb, painfully beautiful smile of his, but the ache in his chest refuses to fade. He hates to think that maybe this thing they have just isn’t enough anymore.
It is a chilly night towards the very end of February when Sebastian finally seems to catch on. They are curled together beneath the musty sheets of Sebastian’s twin bed, reeking of sex and glued together by sweat, and Sebastian’s palm is repeatedly traveling the length of Blaine’s spine in a soft, stroking motion. Blaine has his head cheek pressed to Sebastian’s chest, listening to the steady thump of his heartbeat as they come down, and the room is quiet. Eerily so.
Something about the way Blaine refuses to speak must strike at Sebastian, because a few moments later, he asks, “what are you thinking about?”
His voice is hushed, consumed by the stillness of the room around them. Blaine inhales a long breath, his eyes fluttering shut, before he finally replies, just as quiet. “What is this, ‘Bastian?”
Although they are hardly moving, Blaine can still feel the exact moment that Sebastian freezes up beneath him. He lifts his head from the boy’s chest, peering up at him in the darkness, and Sebastian’s face is utterly blank, an expressionless mask. It seems to paste itself into place, slotting right in with the rest of his ridged exterior. The entire appearance shakes Blaine to the core.
“What do you mean?” Sebastian questions at last, the picture of nonchalance.
Blaine swallows thickly. “This,” he repeats, gesturing between their torsos as he pushes himself further upright. “You and me. What are we doing?”
Sebastian stares across at him, his face still unreadable. There are a painful few seconds of silence that follow, the dread only swelling inside of Blaine’s gut as the time passes without a response.
When Sebastian speaks, ages later, the words slice through Blaine like a knife.
“We’re having fun,” he explains. His tone is void of anything, really, completely casual and point-blank. Blaine’s chest seizes up. “Why do we have to label things?”
Because we care about each other, Blaine wants to demand, though whether it is the truth or not, he isn’t too sure anymore. Because you let me in and I just want to understand you, but I can’t do that if you keep pushing me away afterwards.
But all he says is, “we don’t.”
They don’t talk about it again after that.
*
spring
With March comes the first rainfall, washing away any remaining patches of dirty snow and filling the air with the smell of fresh, wet earth. The grass regains its crisp green color, and as a gentle warmth stirs and breaks through the winter chill, something else seems to break through within Blaine, too.
“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” he tells Sebastian. They are laying side by side, smushed together on the tiny twin bed, and Blaine can feel when Sebastian rotates his head on their shared pillow, his calculating gaze causing something uncomfortable to settle in Blaine’s stomach.
“Just like that?” Sebastian asks, and there is no inflection in his voice. No shock, no sadness. No remorse.
Blaine squeezes his shut. “Sorry,” he whispers weakly.
“Whatever,” comes Sebastian’s response, and then he is rolling out of bed and moving to gather his clothes, his back facing Blaine. Blaine watches with bated breath, waiting for something, anything; he doesn’t know. A plea not to end things? Some sign that he’ll miss, miss them?
But it never comes. He isn’t even surprised when Sebastian finishes dressing himself and slams the door shut behind him without another word, the force of the movement causing the walls around Blaine to shake.
He turns and buries his head in the blankets that still smell of Sebastian, desperately attempting to convince himself that he hasn’t made the wrong decision.
*
It shouldn’t feel like a spear has been shanked straight through his stomach when he catches Sebastian making out with some nameless boy in the school parking lot just a few days later, but it does. Vaguely, Blaine wonders if what he and Sebastian had been doing was even exclusive, or if Sebastian had been doing the same with a handful of other boys on the side all along. Blaine knows that Sebastian’s personality suggests the latter, that the cockiness and the smooth-talking couldn’t have existed without a purpose.
And Blaine promptly feels like a fool.
He stares outside his window at the flowers that are just beginning to bloom, poking out from the barren earth as the sun grapples its way through the gray clouds that cloak the afternoon sky. Spring is supposed to be a time of rebirth, a clean slate—but Blaine only feels dirty. He thinks back to that afternoon in the senior commons, when he’d first recognized that threatening spark in Sebastian’s eye, and he wishes he’d taken the warning more seriously.
*
Winning Regionals doesn’t even feel like an accomplishment. Blaine just feels empty, as if some crucial piece has been ripped out of him, and he loathes it. He doesn’t want to feel like this. He doesn’t want to give Sebastian the satisfaction of having fucked-and-dumped another of his (no doubt many) conquests. But he doesn’t know to rid himself of this vacancy. He tries finding another boy, someone sweeter, someone who actually cares, but all of the dates are failures, and he continues his downward spiral, the glow of Dalton beginning to become soiled by the mark Sebastian has left upon it.
By the end of April, Blaine is exhausted. He misses the liberated feeling of the fall, when everything he had known had been so pure and untouched. He just wants that sensation back, wants to feel like he belongs, not like he has to tiptoe around in fear of giving Sebastian too much power.
So he steels his shoulders and does.
Blaine throws himself into rehearsals for Nationals with a newfound strength, turning a blind eye on everything Sebastian says and does. He sings, and he choreographs, and he eats lunch with Nick and Jeff, laughing and talking as he finally regains some semblance of comfort. He dedicates hours to studying, boosts his GPA to above a 4.0. There are brief, split-second moments when Blaine swears he will catch Sebastian staring at him from the other side of the room, a shocked question in his eyes, but he forces himself to think nothing of it.
Because he isn’t something to be toyed with. He isn’t some whiney, pathetic boy that will give Sebastian the satisfaction of seeing him sulk. He is Blaine Anderson, junior, student, and Warbler lead.
He is a Dalton boy.
*
At some point, as the confetti engulfs them and the spotlights whisk across the stage, making it almost impossible to see, Sebastian finds him.
The announcer is still speaking, but the roar of the crowd drowns the words out, and Blaine is so elated that he doesn’t notice Sebastian until he is only a few steps away, his usual smirk replaced with a cautious smile that results in the unraveling of the knot that’s taken up residence in Blaine’s stomach for the past months.
A couple of feet away, David and Thad and Nick and all the rest of them are condensing around the trophy, their first place trophy, and Blaine itches to join them, to be welcomed into the fold.
But there is something he needs to do first.
“You did it,” Sebastian declares, pitching his voice up to be heard over the cheering.
“We did it,” Blaine corrects him, reaching up to shake a few stray pieces of confetti from his hair. “All of us.”
Sebastian’s nod is nearly imperceptible. “Right,” he agrees, taking a step forward. There is something in his tone, a lack of bite, combined with the smallest hint of honesty that has Blaine moving towards him as well. “The Warblers. We’re one.”
They hover in front of each other, mere inches separating them. For once, though, Sebastian is the one who appears the most uncertain, his forehead wrinkled and his mouth pressing into a soft line as he gazes at Blaine, a hesitance in his eyes. Blaine wants nothing more than to close the remaining space between them, but for some reason, he finds himself stalling as if he is waiting for something, once again.
This time, Sebastian gives it to him.
“I miss you,” he admits, so quiet that Blaine almost misses it due to the chaos around them. His heart stutters in his chest as he takes a moment to allow the words to sink in. A long moment later, the words in his throat finally seem to loosen, and he speaks.
“Would you maybe want to get coffee with me sometime?” he asks. The corner of Sebastian’s mouth automatically quirks up, as if he is trying to prevent the smile from breaking out across his face, and Blaine continues. “I just think there’s a lot we don’t each other quite yet. I’d like to change that.”
“Me, too,” Sebastian echoes. Suddenly, his edges don’t seem so jagged anymore.