Close
She removed herself from the crook of his neck to meet his eyes; her hand found his cheek and she brought him close for a kiss on his nose.
Sebastian trembled and chased her inadvertently, staggering and begging towards her. She laughed and held his face, and he stopped.
"Now you look like a muggle clown," she giggled, sloppily trying to wipe her lipstick from him.
He didn't mind. He smiled at her and let her paint his face as she wished — let her touch sear the blood in his cheeks.
He gazed into her eyes, lids draping down softly as he felt everything for her. He was sure she held his heart in her hands, and he was confoundingly glad that she was the one to rip it out from him.
I'm yours, he wanted to say. Please, let me be yours.
His nose bumped hers, tinging her skin with a faint red print. "Do I look handsome at least?"
"Always."
The music gradually shifted to an allegro, and she removed herself from his arms, placing his heart back in his chest.
The hem of the dress near her clavicle was crooked, a few buttons of her bodice coming loose. Sebastian slowly touched one as if to fix it, but stopped immediately. She looked at him through her lashes, daring or waiting, and he grazed his knuckles on her collarbones.
"It's beautiful, the dress," whispered Sebastian, "like you."
She gave him a lopsided smile. "A bit uncomfortable. I can't wait to take it off."
Sebastian almost asked if he could do that for her.
He felt disgusting. He really did. And guilty still, despite having rightfully broken up with his boyfriend already — the bruise Ominis left in his heart now a permanent memento mori, his own death inevitable and at the hands of her, adding insult to the injury. Despite that, he couldn't help but shiver at the sight of her messy hair, loose in her up-do. She was never proficient at that.
"Are you sure you don't want to go back?" He choked out, swallowing thickly.
"Back where? Certainly not the dorms."
"Why not?"
"Because…" and she took a step closer again, and Sebastian stretched his arms towards her almost instinctively, and she took his hands in hers, intertwining their fingers. His breath caught, and he felt hot and cold at once, and he squeezed her fingers between his.
"Because you're not there." She finished, rubbing her thumbs on the skin of his hands.
"Oh, Merlin…" He felt those words leave in a whisper as he stayed transfixed on her. His shirt blotted the sweat off his neck, as it wetted his scalp at the same time — Sebastian couldn't remember when was the last time he felt so warm, both inside and out.
She hummed and pushed his arms apart, stepping in between that space. Her cheeks were flushed, her lipstick smeared past her lip line, a slight print on her nose, too.
She looked gorgeous.
"W-Why?" he asked, his tongue coming out to wet his lips when her breath fanned his face. He could barely stop himself from stealing those breaths and swallowing them whole, her gasps in his mouth, his lips capping hers shut and making them swell.
"I want to be with you," she murmured, not tearing her eyes from his. And just as he was about to plunge into those beams, just as he was about to break his chains and touch her lips in a flourish and steal her breath away, she spoke again. "I heard about what happened with Ominis. I don't want you to be alone."
A garish cloud of lacewing flies surrounded them. He trembled in her hands, flummoxed and disappointed and blinded by the spasmodic light. His mouth stood agape, still and suddenly very dry — he thought he might unwittingly swallow a fly or two.
"You two are my best friends," she said passionately, bringing his hands closer to her chest in what she thought to be a comforting manner. Sebastian just wanted to undo those bloody buttons instead. "I want you to be happy."
His heart sank, unable to keep in place as it tumbled down his ribs in repeated throbs and winces. "You want me to be happy?" he asked in a wobbly stutter. "That's all you want for me?"
He must have gotten too close, because a sudden flying lambency passed through her eyes and then away in a soft buzz. He softly pulled at her arms and brought her further into his personal space.
"Yes, of course," she said, words quick and quiet, ludicrously reasonable. "I'm sure you and Ominis will solve this and get back to the perfect couple you are."
Sebastian thought there mustn't have been a more displaced form of comfort than this one. A stingy lassitude wore his bones down, then, almost convincing him to give up, neutering any further desire to make her understand.
"Why?" he simply asked again, eyes tracing the light organza of her sleeves. He could see a thin outline of her bare arm under there.
"Because I love you."
His ears teemed with a loud, deaf buzzing sound, like the flies had invaded his ears and found their abode.
Sebastian stared at her. He just… stared. In a confounding second of madness, he thought she meant it. In a brief moment of lucidity, he believed he might resemble a mooncalf. A very surprised, very drunk mooncalf.
"W-Wait…" he choked out — or at least he thought he did. The words got stuck somewhere between his chest and his throat, coming out as a raspy, intelligible gasp. The buzzing hadn't stopped, and something else was wearing his bones, creeping up his muscles until they were just a treacly mass of nothing that made it very hard to breathe.
"I love you," she repeated, a smile stretching that red, soft paradise. He leaned in a bit and smelled a faint scent of firewhiskey in her breath. If he could just swallow it right from her mouth… get drunk on the mere drops of liquor still coating her lips.
"And I love Ominis… and Anne, and of course Poppy, Natty, Garreth… I just want all of you to be happy," she whispered, then pressed her lips on his cheek. "I'll always do my best to make you all happy."
The space between his ribs felt too crammed, marrow caved right into an alcove as she ripped his heart whole.
Sebastian thought she might have failed before she had started.
Because he wasn't happy.
He wasn't happy at all.