Work Text:
“Can I watch?” you ask, peeking through the crack in Sebastian’s door to catch a glimpse of his TV screen. Blue light scatters across the darkness of his room, lighting up his features and the controller in his hands with a ghostly, shifting cast.
He clicks a button that pauses the quiet battle music playing from the speakers, then squints his eyes to see you better. “Is that you, Farmer?”
“Yeah,” you nod, thankful your embarrassed blush remains hidden. What a ridiculous nickname. “Sorry, I know I didn’t text beforehand. I was just walking home from the lake and thought I’d stop by.”
You opt to not mention the premeditation of this – how you’d woken up hours ago to the thought of him, and needed to act.
“Oh,” he nods back, shifting his thighs closer together to make room on the couch. He lets go of the controller to pat the cushion next to him. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
“You sure?” you check. But you’re already halfway inside, angling your body to try and read the pause screen mounted on the wall.
He smiles a little, then nods again. “I can’t promise you entertainment, though. I’ve been attempting this boss for two hours now.”
By the time the door is clicked shut and you’ve shuffled over to the couch, remembering to remove your shoes by the carpet edge first, he’s started up the game again. You sit down next to him slowly, careful not to brush his thighs as you fold your legs. Your eyes have finally adjusted to the poor lighting, and you drift your gaze around his room, noting the developments from the last time you were here: a new laundry pile, pens strewn about the desk, frog slippers turned up against the far wall, and a stack of notebooks piled precariously on the floor.
“It’s a bit messy,” he excuses sheepishly, never ungluing his eyes from the screen. “I’m not a total slob, I promise.”
“Long week of work?” you guess. You watch his fingers fiddle with the buttons, curled and mashing vigorously.
He curses under his breath suddenly, jolting himself backwards. A blurry red screen appears on the TV, cueing for a restart.
“Sorry,” you apologize. You promised yourself before you came over that you wouldn’t be disruptive. You’d just be observant furniture, or a quiet cat; nothing warranting a kick-out.
“No, it wasn’t you,” he amends, sighing. “I just suck.” He smiles self-consciously, then rubs the back of his neck, his fingertips working through his nape. “And no, work is fine, I guess.”
You tilt your head in question at his very-not-fine tone. Quiet furniture. He looks at you sideways and breathes out a laugh. “Just my mom. No big deal.”
“What happened?”
He doesn’t respond for a moment, pausing to gaze at the wall behind his desk, and you mentally kick yourself. Stop breaking your own rules!
“She threw out these – uh.” His eyebrows furrow in the center, and it’s confusingly distracting. You watch his forehead crease as he talks. “Just some old annotated comics I used to read. When I was younger. They had, like, game notes and stuff in them. I used to get my session ideas from them, and now they’re all –”
He stops himself from pulling his hair, then shakes his head, sighing heavier. His eyes drift to the floor. “It’s not her fault. They were crusty and torn up. I’m sure a few new mold species lived in those pages.”
“Ew!” you giggle, taking the bait to lighten the mood and shoving at his shoulder with your palm. It’s warm. He chuckles, chuffed, and his eyes crinkle at the corners. You take a mental picture of it: the rare sight of his laughter.
“They were boxed up under my bed, too. Who knew what I was doing with some old, sticky –”
“Stop!” You gasp, shoving him harder until he tips. “Yoba!”
He cackles, doubling over with his arms across his stomach until his fringe cloaks his face. You continue making disgusted noises through your own laughter, trying not to summon the victim of the joke herself. It takes a moment before he straightens again, meeting your gaze with mirth and mischief.
“Poor Robin,” you lament, once you’ve recovered as well, and he nods, sobered.
“I did go a little hard on her, earlier.” he murmurs. His voice is slightly gravelly with exhaustion, but this is a serious moment, so you don't think about how that affects you right now. “Then I felt so bad, I skipped dinner.”
He readjusts his grip on the controller while you frown. “Do you want me to grab you something from the fridge?”
He shakes his head, settling his elbows on his knees and rebooting the boss fight. There's gore all over the screen already, somehow. “It’s alright. Not that hungry anyway.”
You hum, watching his glowing eyes flicker across the screen as he continues playing. Enough prying, then.
You realize eventually that what you wore out chopping trees in the sun is not best suited for nighttime – a thin cotton tee with linen shorts – and find yourself shifting closer to Sebastian as the game goes on, his body radiating heat from underneath his jeans and hoodie. The basement runs cold, detached from the central heating system, and the lack of blankets on the couch results in your posture gradually curling to orbit his sun, just close enough to brush arms.
He doesn’t react outwardly, so you assume he doesn’t mind the invasion. Gradually, your thigh meets his, and your socked feet align.
Inside, silently, your heart is pounding a detonation against your ribcage. It doesn’t settle down as time goes by; Sebastian continues playing, chatting casually about work, friends, and the frogs in his garden, but your breathing never becomes subconscious. In all the minute places you both meet, your skin buzzes like a toothbrush.
You realize eventually that your awareness has drifted away from his low voice and hones in instead on every small movement he makes. The bob of his Adam’s apple. The stretch of his fingers and their webbing, tendons warping in his knuckles as his fingers move and press. The repetitive shake of his knee from underneath his wrist. The turn of his jaw as he gazes down at you.
Oh.
You freeze in place, trying to remember what normal people, in their normal friend’s room, might normally do. Normally, they don’t take ten seconds to reply to a question. Strike one.
“Sorry?” You murmur, trying to recover from the heat now swimming up your neck.
He smiles sideways. “I said, ‘Are you hungry’?”
“Yeah,” you reply automatically, then stand, blood pooling in your feet as you practically jump away. “Yoba, yeah, all I’ve eaten today is one Salmonberry.”
Sebastian cringes, setting the controller down before standing. “Yuck.”
“What?”
“Fruit.”
“You’re a freak,” you tease, padding away and turning the handle of his door to reveal the dark pathway upstairs. Robin must have turned off all the lights before bed.
“Says the fruit scavenger,” he retorts, whispering within the dead silence of the house. It makes you question if you were talking too loudly in his room.
“Didn't you mention the other day your mom bought you tangerines?” Taking a blind step upwards, a floorboard creaks underneath you. You hiss under your breath. “I can’t see!”
Suddenly, there are hands at your waist, pulling you to the side of the stairway.
Your heart lurches into your throat. Lightning shoots up your spine, crystallizing in your ears. You trip sideways, catching yourself on the wall.
Just as abruptly, he releases you. A hand is sliding into yours, locking your palm and pulling you gently upwards. Sebastian must’ve brushed past you and is now guiding you through the impossible dark.
“I have the stairs memorized,” he whispers. You can barely hear him through your own pulse. “Just go slowly.”
You nod. Stupidly, as if he can see. You can’t even see your own two feet.
At the head of the stairwell, a glow emanates from underneath a doorway. You think it might lead to Maru’s room. Sebastian confidently leads you past it, down the hallway and through to the kitchen.
The fridge door unsuctions from the jamb as he tugs on it, and the room is swathed in a beautiful relief of light.
You both lock eyes, then look down at your met hands. You jerk away in sync, and Sebastian coughs.
“There’s ham,” he notes. His eyes are wide and far away.
You realize the butterflies in your stomach have taken away your hunger. You crouch, reaching for a carton of orange juice.
“This is fine,” you say.
…
Thanking every spirit you know, your embarrassment evaporates the second Sebastian stumbles and launches himself halfway down the stairs on the way back to his room, and you both shed tears trying not to laugh so loud that it wakes the entire house up.
Back on the couch, drinking glass in hand, it’s nearly normal again.
You forget about the warmth of his fingers wrapped around the back of your hand. The way his palm overlapped yours, his skin softer than your calluses. His low voice in the darkness, rumbling as he tried to guide you up the stairs, seven, eight, don’t die, we’re almost there. You aren't thinking about it.
You’re successful nearly the entire night, while he tries and fails to kill the same boss, and he cracks a joke so ridiculous it sends you onto your side, choking on your own spit.
Before you know it, he’s beaten the boss. You’re both high on exhaustion and you whoop and cheer with your hands raised in fists as he laughs so high and loud and relieved, like he just got away with murder, and his eyes are gleaming and glittering and you discover it’s somehow 1:30 am if the clock on his wall is accurate, which means it's way too late to go home. You’d probably pass out on his front lawn.
He must know this, because just after the cutscene ends, he turns to you with the game paused once more and says, “Right. Bedtime. You sleeping over?”
It isn't said like a question, so even if you didn't have the biggest crush on this side of the Gem Sea, you wouldn't refuse. You tell yourself the couch is comfortable, because it is. Old suede couches are worn in and soft, and you tell yourself I can't pass it up when there's blankets already here for me, because there are, and Sebastian is up and grabbing you another one from his closet anyway. And the front door is creaky, and it’d wake the whole house up, and on and on every thought goes to combat the accusations no one but yourself is questioning, because no one else knows how borderline perverted this is: having a crush on the guy that’s about to sleep five feet away from you.
Crazily, you wonder for just a moment if you should admit your feelings to him, just to make this ethical. And then, of course, you remember that he’d likely refuse to be your friend any longer and send you out to die on the lawn.
So you stay silent and mirthful (despite the guilt gnawing on your lungs) as he returns, fuzzy blanket in hand and two cream pillows to replace the decorative one you’re cradling in your lap.
He tosses them down on the floor beneath you, then crouches down to turn on the space heater next to it. He’s on his knees as though in worship, not looking at you at all. You tear your eyes away and wince at your own desire, scolding yourself and vehemently denying the reality of your own interest, as though he can hear your thoughts.
What a terribly, agonizingly awkward world that’d be.
He stands. And he's saying goodnight, way too soon. You woke up this morning hoping to be close, but it's only been two hours of stiff posture and shaking contact, and you're thinking wait! and your body is screaming reach! and your instincts are roaring pull him down! and as he turns away to head to his bed, you're acting before you can feel yourself prepare. “Talk to me for a little?” you ask, way too fast and much too loud. “I’m not that tired yet.”
Selfish, selfish! He's probably tired too.
He doesn't even know.
“What do you want to talk about?” He sounds tired, but he sits.
He should know.
“I don't know,” you admit. “I just haven't seen you for awhile.”
“I thought you'd be sick of me, after two hours of cussing and weeping.”
“You didn't weep.” You laugh. “You weren't that bad.”
“Are you sure?” He scratches his eye in a show. “I was pretty devastated….”
“Did you weep?”
He struggles not to smile, and the sight alone makes you grin. “Maybe….”
“You big baby. It's Resident Evil, not Getting Over It.”
“Hey!” He pushes you. “Don't make fun of my feelings. Men don't cry enough as it is.”
“Manly men don't,” you tease.
A pillow is launched at your face.
You cry out, falling backwards and kicking. You catch a rib, and he hacks.
Grabbing the other cream pillow, you swing yourself up, hitting him on the downswing. He squawks, and you're laughing so hard you're out of breath.
He turns back and looks at you, eyes gleaming.
Game on.
Feathers fly as you initiate your own battle, aiming for his face and miserably failing to dodge his attacks. He’s stronger than you thought, and every hit kicks you back. His dimples are lethal. Your laughter weakens your limbs, turns you to mush, and you can't raise yourself back up from the sofa arm. You blindly swing your pillow in an attempt to catch his face, but when it doesn't work, you kick.
He looks at you in amused disbelief, then grabs your ankles to try and stop you. “Cheating!” he cries. “How could you!”
You're cackling so hard you feel a rib shift. And you resort to swinging your arms instead.
“Oh, no you don’t!” he warns through your giggles, and releases your ankles to grab your wrists. His fringe is torn in every direction but the typical one.
“No!” you moan, struggling in his grip.
“Gotcha.” Dimples.
“No, no,” you wheeze, and in your efforts slip out one hand, holding it valiantly above your head and out of his reach. “Ha!” you yell.
He bites his bottom lip in concentration and pushes himself forward, gasping through his laughter as you try to dodge him.
He leaps upwards, uncurling his thighs from underneath yours, and pushes forward, stretching to catch you.
And he does. He tugs both of your wrists down stubbornly, adamant on keeping them locked away for good, and presses them down into the couch beside both of your ears.
Your eyes are squeezed shut as you cry in laughter, panting and verbally mourning your defeat.
But when you manage to look up again, his face is inches apart from yours, and his dimples are suddenly gone.
The frogs in Sebastian’s tank chirp a steady rhythm. You don’t breathe at all.
He gazes down at your mouth, and then just as quickly looks away.
“Sorry, I should, um. You should – we – Yoba.” He lets go of you abruptly, raking a hand tightly through his fringe. He's still leaning over you. “Sleep.”
“Yeah,” you whisper. You’d forgotten that was the plan. It’s so late. How does someone act normal again? How does one remember the logic of mornings, their clarity and sensibility and the never, ever acting on impulsive kisses?
How does one drag their gaze from the softest lips they’ve ever seen, parted and waiting?
He catches your eye. You’re sure you’re red from head to toe. “Are you…?” Sebastian whispers even quieter, his breath puffing against your mouth. “Do you…?”
There’s that pull in the center of your chest, again, anchoring you to his gravity. Leading you both closer to a middle meet, heads tilting automatically.
A course has set in motion that not even logic can stop now. The present has blended into the future – a melted feeling buzzing under your skin of we will kiss, we are kissing, we have kissed. Your heart is already bleeding faster in the aftermath of what you’re about to do.
“Farmer,” he breathes, and that utterly stupid nickname in this completely serious moment, combined with your bubbling nerves, makes you whip your head away to guffaw, purely insecure.
The spell breaks. Adrenaline kills your nerve, and your face heats to boiling point.
He’s absolutely silent. You can’t bring yourself to look at him again.
“Sorry,” you say, staring away at the floor now. The heater is on and glowing and making your armpits and the backs of your knees sting. You don’t know how to think right now. Thoughts jump out at you like accusations; questions that you already know the answer to.
Sebastian grips your shoulders weakly, pressing you down into the yielding cushions and following to hover closer above you. You're looking now.
His fringe falls out of his eyes, curtaining your gazes. He’s breathing as though it’s a struggle to.
“You haven’t even done anything to me yet,” he counters. “Don’t feel sorry until after, at least.”
Once you nod subconsciously, he nods back. And impossibly, he’s slowly leaning in.
Slower than the millions of your daydreams of this moment.
He's leaning in until your eyes blur and close - reaching benevolently until his mouth tentatively meets yours.
Softness is the first thing you register. His breath, second – tangerine juice and smoke, blowing from his nose to your cheek. You tilt your head against his, locking together like you’ve thought about at least five times tonight alone. It feels just as right as you imagined.
You're scared to move, as though if you do for even a moment he’ll vanish. Your hands stay stubbornly at your shoulders, the thrum of nerves going through your body making you twitch staccato and your breathing staggered.
And then he opens his mouth, so minutely, against yours, and you forget everything. You forget dignity.
You gasp into the kiss, reaching your hands up to thread in his hair. His scalp is warm, his tongue as well, just like the rest of him, so warm, and your only goal now is to taste him, to make him breathe heavy again, to make him press into you harder.
So the interruption in this plan when he breaks away makes you whine. Naturally. And he smiles like you’re being funny.
“Is this okay?” He asks stupidly. His dull fingertips are digging into your trapezius like a lifeline, and his thighs are very obviously shaking above you.
“Are you nervous?” you tease, because relief makes you dumb.
“I like you,” he blurts. “So much. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I like you, too,” you admit, trying to be earnest but also trying to reach up and kiss him again. He leans away.
“Ever since I saw you I thought – and you were – ” he rambles, mile a minute, “You were so – are – and now– oh Yoba, are you sure? I don’t –”
You tug him down until he squeaks into your mouth, and he opens up so immediately, so hotly, so wet that you whine once again in response. You push yourself up into his chest, tug him down by his neck, grip his hoodie collar, and tangle your fingers once again in his hair.
His tongue glides into your mouth, a spoonful of hot honey, and you melt down. He tastes like orange cigarettes, if ever a thing existed. You’d invent them if you didn't want him to live forever.
He dips reciprocally down into you, his chest brushing yours as you part your legs for him to nestle between. He nudges his knees forward until they meet the backs of your thighs. His fingers unhinge from your shoulders to brush your hair back from your collarbone, then gently glide down your back.
It becomes a game of Simon Says: You arch up, he bows down. You lick into his mouth, and he sucks on your tongue. You understand now the meaning of riling up, because you're starting to feel like a revving engine, kicking up sand as you go. You follow every retreat, close every space, pull and lick and whine and pant until he’s pushing you away.
“Woah there,” he breathes, low and unsteady. He's pushing on your shoulders so carefully, like he might do it wrong. “Slow down.”
“Sorry,” you say again, this time with a reason. Embarrassment digs its heels low in your belly. “I just – sorry. I will.”
“I, er – I like it,” he clarifies, fingers spreading wide. “It's just my first time and – and I don't know how to – uh.” He groans then, squeezing his eyes shut and thumping his forehead to your shoulder.
The weight of him there curls a heat around your chest. It makes you feel better about being an idiot.
“Sorry,” you whisper again. “Didn't – I thought you and Abigail….”
Stupid seems to be the basis of all your sentences today.
He shakes his head. “When there's only a few girls in your town, and with nowhere to go, you kind of start to settle. And I just didn't want to.” He sighs. “She's my friend – she deserves more than me just settling for her.”
He must feel the tension difference in your shoulders, because he launches himself upright after a second. “Not you!” he says, very loudly, for being right next to your ear. “No, you’re – you're everything. I met you and felt – you're what I want. Who. If I met you in a room of girls, I’d still know.”
You giggle at his urgency, and your relief, and his clunky phrasing, and then giggle some more at everything else. His knee digging into your bones, his hands hot and damp on your collarbone, your back aching from the awkward angle, and the TV screen still flickering the idle introduction sequence silently. How long this took. How nervous you were; how guilty you felt. And how stupid you were to not notice he felt the same. Interactions from forever ago weave themselves into new stories with new contexts, and you can't seem to stop laughing.
“What's so funny?” he chuckles, and you bite your lip to try and stop. And he watches, and then he kisses your teeth away.
It's slower. You pay attention to the rate of his breathing, the soft friction of his bottom lip dragging yours with it. The subtle taste of wax from his chapstick that he religiously applies in winter sits on the back of your tongue, and his jagged incisors keep bumping yours. It's perfect. You sit up on your elbows to alleviate your aches, and he follows you eagerly.
And then he pulls away. With your eyes adapted, you can see his pupils are blown so wide they're nearly blacked out. And suddenly he's grabbing your waist, pulling you up and onto his lap as he leans back. You squeak at the speed, and his crow's feet return.
He drags his hands down your spine, looking up reverently as you bend to meet his mouth again.
It must be hours that pass, you think, as your jaw grows more sore and your mouth slows sleepily. Exhaustion leads you both onto your sides, cramped together in the small space the couch lends, overlapping and warm.
You kiss until you’re worn, until your chest squeezes with sleep deprivation instead of adrenaline, and your mouths are both sensitive and wet and numb.
His hoodie is thick, softening the weight of your head against his chest. You fiddle with his drawstring aglet, folding your arm into the crook of his. His breath raises you up and down rhythmically, brushing your nose against his neck on each incline.
You place a peck there, and he sighs. You place another, and his fingers dig into the hem of your shirt. So you exhale into him, drawing his skin up between your teeth and tongue, and his hips twitch up into you before quickly drawing away, and he voices a warning, “Okay, okay.”
So you ignore the lightning singing in your spine from his gasp, and squeeze your arms around his torso, soughing until you flatten.
You think, at first, that sleep will have to hunt to find you. But your thoughts dip away with the brushing of his hands along your back, ricocheting off your cortex to hone in on his breathing pattern.
You fall asleep in a similarly assumed position, his hands cradling your head into his chest, and with the same blurry, red Continue? screen, paused in the background.
You dream in hues of orange and yellow; the calmest visions you've had in months.
—
Pressure wakes you. Your head is stuffed with the cotton of a full night's rest, and slowly you blink into a blurry awareness as gentle pecks trail across your cheeks.
A smile splits across your face without permission, and a sigh and a stretch overcome you as Sebastian works over your entire face, kissing and humming and being entirely overt and silly. You haven't seen him this happy in….
“Mwah!” he chirps, “Mwah!” like a bird, and you wrap your arms around his neck as you giggle, brushing your fingers through his hair. It never occurred to you how much larger men’s skulls might be than your own.
“Sebastian,” you whine indignantly, though you’d rather he never stopped. You exhale laughter.
He's morning breath and warmth and utter perfection as he wraps his arms around your torso, pulling you in and bumping his nose against yours.
“I have somewhere to take you,” he hums.
You can't seem to stop smiling. “Where?”
“You’ll like it,” he promises, “but it's a surprise.”
“Now? We go now?”
“Mhm,” he mhms, though he makes no move to go.
“You sure?” you tease. You push at his chest.
“Mhmm,” he purrs, lowering himself down to bury his nose in your neck. You automatically tilt your head back, palming his shoulders and lifting your legs to wrap around him.
“Oh?” he murmurs, and you blush like you've been caught. But instead of backing away, he only sighs, squeezing your waist and planting a kiss on your pulse point.
You suck in a breath, bated, and your mouth falls open as he does it again, but deeper.
His mouth opens against you, jaw clicking. His breath is hot. Spit drags slowly across you from his tongue. You dig your fingernails into him like a lifeline, and he pulls you further up against him, sliding his hand up your back until it meets your nape.
“Sebastian,” you gasp.
He sucks you in between his teeth, then dully bites down.
You aren't at fault for the noises you make. The noises he drinks out of you, the ones he's prying to hear. He kisses your neck like he's starving, grips your thigh in one hand, and kneads, and you raise your hips into him, looking for unconscious friction.
“Sebastian,” you moan, and all of a sudden he stops. He draws away.
Your eyes are wide as he looks down at you.
“Shh,” he scolds jokingly. “My parents are upstairs.”
“Hn,” you whine, and he slowly releases you.
“Let’s get going,” he murmurs, ignoring your whine of protest. “You can borrow my clothes, if you like.” And then ridiculously, you watch a blush rapidly spread across his face at the notion, like he hadn't just tried to eat you alive.
You note the heaviness of his physical absence as he walks away to get you sweats and a hoodie.
You both dip in and out of his en suite to get dressed. You aren't at the stage yet to watch – you're barely at stage one. But still the interior of his bathroom feels personal, pried open, and you rush as though if you take too long he may begin to see you.
The morning shines in a different colour from yesterday. Sunlight streams in through the foyer curtains after he leads you up, a stark contrast from the stumbling of last night, painting the room in orange hues. Robin, ever the early bird, bids you both goodbye with a wave and a knowing wink that makes Sebastian protest like a teenager and rush you out the door.
You're chuckling all the while as he opens the garage and preps his motorcycle, tilting your head to the unobscured sunlight like a flower. You feel untouchable. You feel like you're wrapped in lace.
As you gaze out at the trees and greenery around his front lawn, wind brushes against you and freshens your sleep-softened skin. You spot Linus out at the lake, posed just as you are to watch the world go by.
“Alright, beautiful,” Sebastian prompts, and for a ridiculous moment, you think he's talking to his bike. You squint to eye him in the sunlight. His hands are on his hips. “You ready?”
You finally shield your vision with one hand, then point with the other. “For that thing?”
He nods giddily.
You shake your head. “Sebby, you know I’m terrified.”
He rushes to take your poised hand. “I know, I know, but I – I figured we could – that is, I could show you – help you with the. If you just hold onto me, I’ll keep you safe, and we – you’ll be amazed at how I take you.”
Your eyes widen.
“Where I take you!” he yells, embarrassed. “How I ride. Oh my L – just, get,” he gestures. “Can we? Please?”
You bite your lip nervously, then walk to the bike with his hand still in yours. He bounces to the front, then swings his leg up and over the dark blue seat eagerly.
“Here.” He holds his helmet out to you, then waits as you pull it on before helping you strap it fully.
You eye the bike warily, and he nods in encouragement.
“It’ll be okay,” he promises. “I’ll keep you safe. And we aren't going too far.”
Once you get situated behind him, he instructs you on how to turn with the bike and where to keep your feet.
“If you get scared, just shout at me, and we’ll stop, okay?”
“Okay. Yeah.” You thumbs-up at his side mirror.
He leans forward, adjusting himself and grabbing onto the handlebars. You’ve seen this part in movies, at least – you lean forward too and wrap your arms around his torso, then lean your helmet cheek against his spine.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” you nod.
And he kicks off to swing the driveway, and cuts into the forest.
—
Cows are everywhere along the highway. Bounds and bounds of green hills, overgrown and sunlit, spread out impossibly far in the distance. Wind whips your hair, slaps it against your neck. Your thighs are frozen. Sebastian is steady.
The first few minutes of riding are a mission in trust, and the rest is an awe-filled slideshow of the beauty of the road. At one point Sebastian tilts you both side to side rhythmically, and you don't even sweat.
After what must only be 20 minutes, he slows down into a side trail that inclines up into a forest entrance. You're going at a bicycle's pace now, dipping underneath an archway of branches and vines and moss.
The road winds and roots, your feet kicking against the side panels of the bike as the tires meet uneven ground. The roar of the engine is quieter without the whoosh of 60mph wind in your ears to accompany it. And eventually, Sebastian stops at the top of a cliff face.
Flowers lace the ground. A cityscape extends before you, far away and dimly grey behind a crystal blue lake. Dirt and rocks are molded to hold the ground up, steadying your feet as Sebastian leads you to the edge.
After a moment of silence, he nudges you with his shoulder.
“What do you think?”
“I think…” You shake your head. Birds sing and swoop above you. “it's perfect.”
You relax into the wind, into the serenity. Trees brush each other and drape leaves over the earth. Sebastian takes your hand.
“I think so, too.”