Archive of Our Own

1. Age 14

Sebastian blinked at the arm that had been shoved in front of his face.

"I'm getting everyone in town to sign my cast," the owner of said arm announced with a grin.

The boy's name was Sam - which Sebastian knew not by introduction, but by the powers of careful observation that came as a condolence gift for the death of his childhood social confidence. He had never actually spoken to Sam. He'd merely watched him from afar, studying all the little quirks and micro-habits he probably wasn't aware of. The chronic wrinkling of his nose, the bounce of his leg when he tried to sit idle, the slight inward tilt of his left foot when he walked.

Silent scrutiny was Sebastian's primary defence mechanism against persistent anxiety. Or at least, he had always believed it to be a defence mechanism; later in life, he would come to learn that it was, in fact, a symptom of the anxiety, just as debilitating as all its resulting actions. But at the time, he had convinced himself that it was a necessary step in the threat appraisal process. He used the results of his surveillance to determine whether the person in question posed any risk to his curated little safety bubble, and if so, which routine changes he needed to make to avoid them.

Alex Mullner, for example, was firmly in the red threat zone. He was the exact archetype of a person who would impose judgement and ridicule on Sebastian. Loud, sporty, confident, forthright. Likewise, Haley - the youngest occupant of the house beside Sam's - shared the top position on Sebastian's red-threat list. He always avoided the beach in the summertime because he knew the two of them frequented it. He took the long way down to the pier to bypass Alex's house. He opted for the staircase near the lake when he headed into town because the alternative route passed by the fountain, where Haley often loitered.

There weren't many people in Pelican Town who landed comfortably in the green threat zone. Aside from Sebastian's mum, it was really just Abigail; he wasn't super close with her, but they hung out situationally, and she seemed to get him well enough. Everyone else was scattered anywhere from lime yellow to dark orange - not too plausibly risky to warrant entire avoidance rituals, but certainly not people he'd voluntarily be stuck in a room with for hours, where conversations were awkward and judgement was abound.

Sam, thus far, had tentatively floated around the higher end of Sebastian's figurative threat meter. He was bubbly and energetic and full of life, and he had an apparent natural charm that seemed to work on everyone he'd met. People like Sam didn't usually associate with people like Sebastian. He figured that if they ever crossed paths, Sam would probably be friendly, because that's what he was like with everyone; but he wouldn't look twice as Sebastian. He'd probably be the type to silently write him off, and spend all his time with the Alexes and Haleys of the world instead, where his charisma was more likely to be well-received.

But here he was, with his arm extended in Sebastian's immediate vicinity, and a black marker held out like an offering.

Sebastian silently took the marker. He scribbled his name on Sam's broken-arm cast, in the first open space he saw.

Sam skimmed an eye over it.

"Sebastian, huh? Cool name."

He planted himself in the adjacent seat and clipped Sebastian's shoulder with his own.

"I'm Sam," he said. "I'd shake your hand, but y'know. My arm is kinda broken."

The needle on Sebastian's threat meter was slowly, steadily climbing towards the red.

They were in Dr Harvey's waiting room. Sebastian was due to be called in for his appointment any minute now, which meant that getting up to leave wasn't really an option. Out of the eight total seats in the waiting room, Sam had deliberately chosen the one next to Sebastian, and he had veered right to the inner edge of it, like he was trying to sit as close as possible.

Sebastian was cornered. Conversation was inevitable.

"So, Sebastian." Sam leaned back in his chair and crooked his non-broken arm behind his head. "What's your deal?"

Sebastian turned vaguely in his direction. "My… deal?"

"Yeah, y'know. What do you do? Which house is yours? How long have you lived here for?"

The needle was solidly in the red now, and it was beeping incessantly, like a smoke alarm warning him right before an explosion.

"Uh." That was a hell of a lot of questions that he didn't really want to answer. But - as previously established - Sebastian was cornered. And he didn't want to be rude on purpose, even though most people ended up thinking him rude anyway, so he had to give something to satiate this chatty ball of energy. "My house is in the mountains, and I've lived here my whole life."

He chose not to answer the question of what do you do. It seemed too complicated; too heavy with burdens he didn't want to bear.

"Cool." Sam swung his legs back and forth. "I'm from the city."

Sebastian already knew.

"Why would you choose to live in Pelican Town?"

"Eh." Sam shrugged his good shoulder. "Something about being close to my dad's base, I think. He's in the army."

Sebastian knew that, too.

"I guess that makes sense," he said.

Most people would have ended the conversation there. Sam, however, was not most people.

"The city's cool, though." He swung one leg over the other as if to keep them from moving, only to thwart that plan with the repetitive bouncing of the one tucked underneath. "It's louder. There's always stuff happening. I think I'll go back when I'm older."

Sebastian glanced over at Dr Harvey's green wall, plastered with medical info posters and a hanging television. Boring, just like everything else in the valley.

"I wanna live in the city someday," Sebastian mused. "This town sucks."

Sam suddenly leaned all the way in, eyes alight with a blue-tipped flame of earnest hope.

"Would you come with me?"

Sebastian couldn't do much other than turn back towards him.

"I don't know you," he said, brow wrinkled.

Sam burst out laughing.

2. Age 16

Sebastian slammed his fist against the door of 1 Willow Lane.

"Sam!" he called out for the third time. And then, to himself: "C'mon, asshole."

It was a sticky-hot summer Tuesday, and the sweat was crawling along Sebastian's skin, soaking deeper patches into the fabric of his hoodie the longer he stood beneath its fury.

Fucking hell, he just wanted to take the thing off. But Willow Lane was right below the plaza of Pelican Town - the only connecting road between the forest and the valley's heart, and thus a relatively main thoroughfare by small-town standards - and he didn't exactly like the idea that someone could just wander past and see the precise shape of his body, carved out by the tight edges of his undershirt and skinny jeans.

It was one of many things Sebastian despised about the summer's fiery heat: the pressure to show more of his body than he was comfortable with. The Alexes and Haleys of the world loved to show off. Haley would walk up from the beach with a towel draped around her barely-covered torso, strategically pulled low at the chest and high at the waist for maximum exposure. Alex shamelessly barrelled through town in nothing but flip flops and boardshorts, sculpted arms swinging as he walked.

Sebastian couldn't think of anything worse than being stared at, whether by his peers or the grumpy old curmudgeons that comprised most of the valley's population. So he'd worn his hoodie and jeans all the way from the mountain to the town, and prayed that Sam would let him in before he passed out on the doortstep.

Thankfully, Sam opened the door just as Sebastian was poised to knock a fourth time.

"Hey." Sam smiled, though it was noticeably strained. He scratched the back of his neck. "Uh, Vince is home. He's having a fit."

"Oh."

During the summer break, Sam was usually home alone on a Tuesday. Jodi attended Caroline's aerobics class, and Penny would take Vincent to the library so he wouldn't drop a reading level by the time school was back in session. That was why Sebastian had picked today to pay a spontaneous visit, where he and Sam could watch TV in the air-conditioned living room rather than Sebastian suffering alone in his stuffy basement - just his white shirt and minuscule desk fan against the world.

Evidently, though, this was a wrinkle in that plan.

"But it's fine! It's cool you stopped by," Sam scrambled to assure him. "Penny's here, too. She's tryna calm him down. I think she's slowly getting it under control."

"I can come back later?"

"No, no, it's fine. Come in, just… don't mind the screaming."

He stepped aside, carving a small space for Sebastian to enter through the doorway. Sure enough, in the background, the screams of a small child bellowed from the living room with impressive resonance, accompanied by Penny's hushed voice phasing in and out of earshot, insisting that Vincent was going to be okay. Sam grimaced in apology as he led Sebastian to his bedroom and shut the door.

There was no vent for the air conditioner in Sam's room, but he did have a ceiling fan that worked well enough in warding off the heat. Sebastian stripped off his hoodie, to the instant relief of his body. Sam's eyes lingered a little too long, which made the skin of his arms prickle with goosebumps despite the persisting heat. He curled in upon himself somewhat. Still, the relief was worth it. He didn't really like showing much of his body to anyone, Sam included, but there were select people he'd brave it for when he was particularly uncomfortable. He knew that Sam wouldn't say anything, even if he was silently judging.

Sam looked away, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts, and Sebastian breathed a liberated exhale. Sam moved to the job of clearing space on his floor.

"We didn't have plans today, did we?" he asked, as he picked up an assorted pile of clothing from his floor and shoved it into his top dresser drawer. It bubbled over the edge like a river basin after a flood; Sam nearly crushed his fingers in there trying to slam it shut.

"Nah," Sebastian said. "It's just too hot to stay in the basement."

Plus, Demetrius was being insufferable as per usual, but he didn't really want to get into that.

Sam kicked a few more objects out of his way - more clothes, his guitar case, a winding trail of bedsheets - and Sebastian trekked the newly-cut path all the way to Sam's desk. He draped his hoodie over the back of the chair.

"Damn," Sam said. "I wish we could hang out in the main room. It's so much cooler in there."

Sebastian shrugged. "I don't mind."

He spun Sam's desk chair ninety degrees and sat down, facing the edge of the bed where Sam opted to perch himself with both elbows rested on his knees. It took less than a second for one leg to start restlessly bouncing, like even that agonising half-second of sitting was more idleness than his body could withstand.

Another splitting shriek from the other side of the wall speared straight through Sebastian's ears. He flinched, wincing.

"Sorry," Sam said. "He's really worked up today. Like, more than usual."

Sebastian looked towards the door.

"What's got him so upset, anyway?"

"Eh…" Sam shifted his weight. "I think he overheard my mum talking to Abby's mum. Just some not-so-fun stuff about the war."

Sebastian swallowed. "Oh."

Sebastian could count on one hand all the times he'd heard Sam talk about his dad. It was always with reverence; fond childhood memories, musings about how tough he was, how he always knew the right thing to say. Never anything about the war.

Sebastian knew what it was like to have an absent parent. To wonder if they'd ever come back. To steadily lose hope as days bled into seasons bled into years. He knew all the ways that absence had pierced bullet holes into his skin, all the irreparable damage it had done to his self-esteem.

He didn't know if Sam had been affected the same way, though. Sam always seemed so totally carefree. He'd broken three bones in all the time Sebastian had known him, and every time, he'd joke through the pain like he didn't even feel it. The only thing Sebastian had ever seen him genuinely upset about was having to do homework. Serious matters didn't seem to bother him. And their situations were completely different, after all; Sam's dad still loved him, even if he was an ocean away.

Sebastian wasn't sure how much was okay to ask. Genuine as Sam's nonchalance appeared to be, Sebastian couldn't fathom that someone could be so totally unbothered by any of life's sharp, rusted edges. The more likely possibility, in his mind, was that Sam laughed off hardships to keep all the scarier feelings at bay - and if that was true, Sebastian didn't want to be the reason he caved underneath them.

He let the silence stretch between them, as long as it took for Sam to snap it.

"Well, then." Sam kicked at a bubble in his carpet. "Do you wanna stay in here? Or do you wanna go cool off outside?"

"It's boiling out there," Sebastian said. "How are we gonna cool off?"

"I dunno. Throw water balloons? Spray each other with the hose? Run through my neighbours' sprinklers a few times?"

Sebastian glanced at his outfit - stripped down to just a short-sleeved top and his usual dark skinny jeans. He wrinkled his nose.

"I don't think I'm exactly dressed to get wet."

Sam sprang up from his spot on the bed.

"C'mon, where's your sense of adventure?" he countered, extending one arm to Sebastian.

Sebastian weighed up his options. On one hand, it was awful outdoors, and he wasn't particularly thrilled about the idea of adding soaking wet to the list of reasons for his discomfort today. On the other hand, the air was starting to feel a little too thick in here, and Sam's hand was a little too enticing, and - jeans be damned - Sebastian was starting to think a quick spray of the garden hose might be what he needed to bring himself back to his senses.

He took Sam's hand, and let himself be led outdoors.

He followed Sam around to the rear of the house, where the garden hose was coiled around a hook on the back wall. Sam unwrapped the first few loops and switched it on at the tap. A jet of cold water burst out and blasted Sebastian straight in the face.

He recoiled and covered his face with his hands.

"Mmph!"

Sam doubled over in hysterics. Sebastian stared at him through a veil of dripping water, distinctly unamused.

"Your face!" Sam cackled. "Yoba, that was priceless."

Sebastian marched over to the narrow deck attached to the back of the house, where Sam was bent over himself, wracked by fits of laughter. His total lack of composure had left him weak and defenseless when Sebastian approached; he was able to take the hose from him easily.

"Hey—" was as far as Sam got, before he, too, became the victim of a surge of water straight to the face.

It was Sebastian's turn to laugh.

As soon as he recovered enough to move properly, Sam lifted himself up and lunged for the hose, still in Sebastian's clutches. The bad news was that Sam, when operating at full capacity, was a hell of a lot stronger than Sebastian. The good news was that Sebastian was prepared for it this time. Sam wrestled the hose out of his grip and opened fire again, and Sebastian ducked out of the way and chased him around the backyard until they were both on the ground, panting and laughing and dripping from head to toe.

Sebastian distantly registered that water had seeped into his boots, and had soaked all the way through his socks. That was going to be a bitch to deal with later, when he trekked back up to his house in the mountains. Right now, though, he was just high enough on endorphins that it didn't really matter.

He lay on his back in the grass, one arm shielding the sun, struggling to catch his breath.

"Don't you think," Sam rasped between breaths, "that cloud up there kinda looks like a cactus fruit?"

Sebastian tried to follow Sam's finger where he was pointing up towards the sky. All he saw was a giant tangle of clouds, all bleeding into one another, and so impossibly glary by the sun's light that he couldn't study them for too long even if he wanted to.

"I don't know," he said. "They just look like clouds to me."

"Eh. Maybe I'm just hungry."

Sam's arm dropped from its vertical position to instead mimic Sebastian's makeshift sun-shield.

"Wanna go inside and get food?" Sebastian suggested.

"We can't do that," Sam said. "Mum will be pissed if she comes home and finds out that we tracked water all through the house."

Sebastian turned to him, brow furrowed. "What exactly was your plan after running through the hose, then?"

"I dunno. I figured we'd dry off." He wrinkled his nose. "Maybe I should've brought towels."

"You think?"

Sam shrugged one shoulder.

"Well it's too late for that now, isn't it?"

Sebastian breathed a soft laugh, which faded into the tiniest inkling of a smile. The full-blown endorphin rush had started to wane, though, and a spell of vertigo pulled the world into orbit around him, threatening his cosy equilibrium.

He closed his eyes.

"Do you think Vincent's alright now?" he thought aloud.

He felt something in the air shift. It was pure anxiety that opened his eyes and dragged them over to Sam, just to check if he was still smiling.

He wasn't.

Sebastian wanted to kick himself.

"He should be," Sam said. "He doesn't usually get upset about things for this long." There was a pause. "Although I've never seen him like that before."

He was properly frowning now, and the guilt was heavy in Sebastian's stomach.

Why the hell did he have to bring up Sam's family drama? This was a perfectly good distraction before he went and ruined it.

"I'm sure it'll blow over," Sebastian tried to backtrack. "I'm sure he's learned a lot from you. You're good at dealing with that stuff."

The corner of Sam's mouth ticked upward.

"Thanks. I'm tryna be a good role model." Sam sighed. "No use stressing over things you can't control, y'know?"

Sebastian pondered that sentiment.

He had always been bad at that; shelving stressors on the basis that they weren't immediately actionable. Thoughts had a way of taking over his whole mind, clogging it up like a dirty sink, and the only way to shake them was to immerse himself in fantasy worlds, where he could bend reality to his will.

"Yeah," Sebastian said. "That's… easier said than done, though."

"I think it's easier when you're a kid." Sam shifted onto his side, propped up on one elbow. "I mean, you and I have a little more control, right? We can just get the hell out of Pelican Town if we want to."

Sebastian turned partway towards him. "Yeah, if you want to come with me someday."

"Are you kidding? You're not leaving without me!"

Sam plucked a frond of grass and threw it at Sebastian, in a pitiful mimicry of an ambush. The wind intercepted it before it ever made contact.

In his defeat, Sam laid back down.

"Imagine all the skate parks," he said, with a wistful sigh. "Mayor Lewis can't touch me out there."

His signature goofy grin settled back into place, and Sebastian couldn't help but smile a little, too.

"We'll be unstoppable."

3. Age 18

"You can't play both."

Sebastian gave Sam that familiar disapproving look - the quirked eyebrow, the slight downward pinch to the corners of his mouth. Sam, in turn, gave his most pathetic attempt at puppy dog eyes.

"C'monnnn," he whined. "It'll be epic! I'll be the first musician ever to be both the guitarist and the drummer at the same time."

"Have you ever stopped to wonder why no one's ever done it before?"

Sam shrugged. "'Cause I'm just built different."

Sebastian rolled his eyes and stifled a smile as he splayed his hands over the electric piano keys. Their instruments stood in the little square of wooden planks bordered by Sam's green carpet, the surface area of which was littered with balled-up pages of discarded lyrics and possible band names printed in block fonts (thus far, they had narrowed it down to two half-decent options; Goblin Rage, which had been Sam's suggestion, and Demon Destroyer, which was Sebastian's).

Sam seated himself at the drum kit with both drumsticks in one hand and the guitar clutched in the other. Sam counted them in with four poorly-timed clacks of the sticks, and then they kicked off the song they'd been practicing on loop. It went about as well as Sebastian expected - which was to say not at all. It took Sam exactly three notes to drop his guitar, and then the scene devolved into him scrambling to juggle all three items with his two clumsy hands, while Sebastian tried to cap his laughter with a palm clamped over his mouth.

Sam's circus act culminated in an accidental hard kick of the bass drum, which sent a reverberating thump quivering through the air. The thump was immediately followed by a blood-curdling holler from out in the hall. Sam and Sebastian froze still, horrified expressions hanging in the suspended silence like participants in a particularly intense game of musical statues.

The door flew open, and an exasperated Jodi burst in, red in the face.

"Sorry, boys," she said. "Could we put the concert on hold for now? Sammy, you know your father is… not well."

Sam grimaced. "Sorry mum."

She shut the door.

The boys exchanged solemn glances.

Sam slowly, quietly set his guitar on the ground. Sebastian switched off his electric piano.

The air had suddenly grown three layers thicker, and it was starting to clog up Sebastian's throat, and he was struck by an immense, Sam-like impulse to lighten the mood. Maybe Sam was rubbing off on him.

"Guess the drum-and-guitar combo didn't work out so well," he said.

That comment earned him a pair of drumsticks flung at his head.

"Fuck!" he half-shouted as he ducked out of the way, narrowly missing the ballpoint end of one stick.

"Hey!" Sam said. "That's a gold coin for the swear jar."

"That's not fair, I was assaulted."

"Rules are rules, man." Sam flashed a mischievous grin. "How else are we gonna save up for the city without your potty mouth?"

Sebastian grumbled as he made the walk of shame to Sam's desk and retrieved a gold coin from his pocket. The jar was about a quarter full already - most of which was indeed a year's worth of penalties for Sebastian's vulgar vocabulary. Sebastian smoothed a wrinkling corner of the jar's decaying label, 'Zuzu Fund' struggling to stay visible in fading black marker text.

He added his coin to the growing pile, then flopped onto Sam's bed, eyes fastened to the ceiling. Sam collapsed right after him.

"Y'know," he started, as he nudged Sebastian with his shoulder. Sebastian obediently shuffled over. "Once we have our own place, we won't have to worry about the noise. We can play as loud as we want."

Sebastian turned his head towards Sam, as much as he could in the cramped twin bed. Sam's breath was warm where it fluttered over his face.

"I don't think that's exactly true," Sebastian said. "We're still gonna have neighbours."

"Eh. I don't care what some dumb party-poopers next door think of us. They're lucky to get a free show."

Sebastian's laughter shook the bed. His lips held their upward curve well after the noise blinked itself to nonexistence. Sam was smiling, too; that warm, wide, genuine smile, with the sparkling eyes to match.

Something lively and terrifying flapped its wings in Sebastian's gut.

Fuck.

In the last year or so, something had shifted in his relationship with Sam. Or at least, it had shifted in his own feelings towards Sam. He couldn't pinpoint one particular catalyst, so much as a series of steadily escalating moments that all culminated at the same point. Hands brushing when they walked side-by-side. Legs thrown over Sebastian's lap when Sam lay sideways on his couch. Slightly-too-long glances that launched Sebastian's heart into a complicated acrobatics routine.

Sebastian had outrun it to the moon and back, but then Sam had suggested starting a band together, and he'd strummed that demo song he wrote, the one with the two-note chorus and the lyrics that were just vague enough to spark a delusional ember of hopeful yearning, and the truth had tripped him over.

Sebastian had a crush. A very big, very inopportune, very difficult-to-ignore crush.

He couldn't act on it, obviously. There was no way Sam would ever feel the same as him. But here and now, with almost no distance between them at all, he couldn't quite stop himself from hoping.

"We're gonna have so much fun in the city," Sam said, almost a whisper. "We should go soon. Like, this year, maybe. Before we're all old and wrinkly and shit."

Realistically, Sebastian knew they weren't getting out any time soon. The jar probably had, what, 200g in it? Maybe 250 if they were lucky? And between the two of them, Sebastian was the only one with a job, which doubled the time it would take for them to save up properly. Plus, Demetrius had floated the idea of charging Sebastian rent now that he was eighteen, and he was already paying for his own gas and half the internet bill, and he knew how quickly expenses could pile up. Freelance work paid decent money now that he was building a reputation, but it was unstable, and he didn't have half the clients he would if he were backed by a college degree - yet another expense that he just couldn't afford to take on.

But Sam's eyes… Yoba. They were so hopeful and alive, and Sebastian was sure he could find galaxies in them if he really went looking, and he couldn't bring himself to let Sam down.

"Well, you might be in luck," Sebastian said, "'cause you owe us another coin."

4. Age 20

Onstage, the world didn't exist.

Sebastian had been shitting himself when he'd first sat down at the piano. One look out at the crowd - the crowd, all pressed shoulder-to-shoulder on the lawn, all looking to him with bated breath - had almost sent him into a permanent state of paralysis. It was a daunting blend of old faces and new faces, a giant pit of all his greatest fears and anxieties, and it stuck to the wall of his throat like stale bread he couldn't swallow.

He tried to focus on the piano. All he had to do was look down and play, just like he had done hundreds of times in Sam's room. It seemed an impossible task. The night was warm, but his fingers had seized up as if frozen, and when he tried to arrange them over the keys in preparation for the first song, the stark patchwork of black and white rectangles beneath him had all blurred into one big grey mass.

But when the lights had blinked from hazy-dim to glaring-white, beamed straight into his eyes, the crowd had melted away. And then Sebastian had lost himself. Then there was just him and his piano and the music, and the back of Sam's head as he threw himself into the rhythm, one foot keeping time.

It was electric.

The crowd had roared a note of pure energy and clamped praise between their hands, and Sam had held his microphone up in the air in a victorious stance. Backstage, Abigail had pulled them both into a crushing hug. She took a selfie of the trio, with her brand-new instant camera flipped towards them and their faces slightly off-centre. Sebastian swore he'd felt Sam's hand curling against his back. He let that tiny possible-hallucination fuel his best attempt at a smile.

The morale had stayed high all the way down the hall of their hotel. Abigail and Sam had led the pack, babbling away about all the things that went well, all the things that could have been improved, all the possible setlist tweaks to fine-tune their act for the next gig. Sebastian trailed behind, with his hands in his pockets and a euphoric buzz of leftover adrenaline in the back of his head.

They reached Abigail's room first and bid her their respective goodnights, and then Sam and Sebastian retreated to their own.

Sam swiped their keycard. He held the door open for Sebastian, grinning all the way to his ears.

"Home sweet home!"

Sebastian stepped inside. The room was… unassuming, to say the least. But it would do the job, just for one night.

"Only for tonight," Sebastian said. "Thank Yoba…"

"Hey, I think it's got character." Sam dragged a fingertip along the ugly brown wallpaper while Sebastian squatted to unlace his boots. When he looked up again, Sam was staring at his dust-coated finger, face scrunched. "It's very… rustic."

Sebastian kicked off his shoes with a curt laugh.

"If by rustic, you mean hideous, then yeah, it definitely is."

"Eh." Sam wiped the dust on his pants. "Just you wait. If we keep playing like we did tonight, we'll be able to afford real luxury in no time."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep. Mark my words." Sam approached the far corner of the room where his suitcase was stashed. He pulled out a graphic tee and a pair of blue plaid shorts. "Next time, we'll be posted up in some ritzy hotel where they give you fancy soap bars and spoon-feed you caviar out of gold tins."

Sebastian wrinkled his nose. "Ugh, all the money in the world couldn't make me eat caviar."

"Says the guy who eats raw fish," Sam said, kicking his suitcase closed. "Anyway, I'm gonna go change."

He ducked into the bathroom - not without flashing Sebastian a mischievous grin first - and shut the door behind him. Sebastian's own pyjamas were comparatively less charming than Sam's, comprised of black sweatpants and a black shirt, but they would have to suffice. He wiped off as much of his eyeliner as he cared enough to bother with, then climbed into bed to let himself decompress.

He took a few steady, grounding breaths. He was still rolling off the afterglow of a powerful adrenaline high, and he was just edging the precipice of his reverse-metamorphosis, from the dynamic rock band pianist into the small-town nobody with a critically low-voltage social battery. Now that he was coming down from the exhilaration of a successful performance, it was time to face the reality of what he'd gotten himself into behind the scenes: sharing a bed with Sam.

It had been cheaper to share a room; that was their rationale. Across every hotel they tried, this had been the most affordable option by far. It was a tiny, square box with a queen bed backed against the wall and only one working lamp. For two young adults barely making minimum wage and stashing every spare cent into their long-term city fund, it made sense to take up that offer. They could handle sharing the same tiny cramped space, sharing the same bed, just for one night.

There was one minor caveat, though, which he would never dream of admitting aloud: Sebastian still wasn't over that godforsaken crush.

No; if anything, it had gotten worse. Seeing Sam totally in his element, arms shifting over the guitar, head bobbing under the glowing spotlight…

It was enough to send a hot surge of guilt pulsing up Sebastian's spine as Sam climbed into bed alongside him, his thoughts acting up on the crest of that still-not-quite-faded adrenaline high.

Sebastian rolled away from Sam, facing the lamp instead. It was the only way he'd be able to survive the night with his sanity intact.

"Let me know when you want the light off," he said.

There was a shift beside him as Sam repositioned himself, and then: "Whenever you're ready."

Sebastian reached for the switch. The lamp clicked off.

The air stayed quiet for a long moment. If Sebastian listened, he could just hear the faint whisper of Sam's breathing, and if he really paid attention, he could even feel the soft rise-fall of his chest against the mattress.

Sebastian closed his eyes.

Pretend he's not there. Pretend he's not there. Pretend he's not there.

"Hey, Sebastian?"

Fuck.

"Yeah?"

The rustle that followed was much more pronounced. Sebastian couldn't tell if he was moving closer or further away.

"I think we crushed it tonight," he said. "Seriously. I think we've really got something special going. Like, the music, the synergy… man, I just wanna do that over and over for the rest of our lives."

Sebastian's lip quirked. Being a musician might not have been his personal life goal - not the main one, anyway - but Sam's passion for it made the whole ordeal worthwhile. He'd replay this night a thousand times over just to watch the way Sam came alive as soon as the stage lights awoke.

"It was pretty cool," Sebastian said.

"Right?"

The sheets rustled again, and Sebastian shifted onto his back, just to see if he could tell which direction Sam was facing. In the faintest sliver of visibility, hazy enough to be an illusion, Sebastian thought he saw Sam looking right at him.

"I wish my dad could've seen us," he said.

Sebastian's heart squeezed.

Kent was barely home for a year before he was plunged right back into his third deployment, and Sam's family was barely held together by string. Vincent would cry his eyes dry and howl his throat raw, from the evening's crescendo through to the gloomy caverns of night. Jodi's manner was a little more stilted, her smile a little more vacant, the dark circles underneath them a little more pronounced.

Sam had simply carried on as usual, with a spring in his step and a sparkle in his eyes. But there was a note of melancholy in his tone just now, a slim fracture that Sebastian had never heard from him before, and Sebastian suddenly felt very much out of his depth. He wanted to say something reassuring, but he didn't know what, or whether it would even help, or how deep Sam's hurt ran in the first place.

He will, Sebastian wanted to say. As soon as he gets back, he'll be front and centre in the audience. He wished he could've promised that. He would've promised Sam the world if he could.

He couldn't.

So he said: "Yeah. Me too."

He wasn't sure quite what he meant by that - whether he wished Kent could be there too, or whether he was yearning for a father figure of his own, someone who cared enough to watch on among the crowd with his back set straight up in pride. Perhaps he meant both. Perhaps he meant neither; just spoke those hollow words in the absence of any that felt more comforting.

Sam sighed.

"As soon as my dad comes home, I wanna move to the city for real," he said. The steadfast self-assurance slotted back into his voice, and a heaving load of tension eased off Sebastian's shoulders. There was the confident, hopeful Sam he admired. "I don't care if it's the shittiest place ever with ugly-ass wallpaper. We're gonna move out here, and we're gonna make this happen. Together."

Sebastian finally turned all the way, facing Sam in the darkness.

"Together," he repeated.

Their knees brushed under the covers, and that was how Sebastian knew that Sam was indeed facing him. Not only that, but he'd positioned himself close, close enough that it didn't take much shifting for them to touch. He wasn't making any effort to move away. His breath was louder now, too, its rhythm kind of fast.

Every little observation stacked up on top of one another; delusion after delusion. It was a dangerous game.

"Sebastian," Sam said, much quieter.

Sebastian felt the pause that followed, like a tangible presence in the bed alongside them.

"Do you think of me as… just a friend?"

In the quiet darkness, Sebastian went dead still.

He might've thought he'd actually died, if not for the pulse that thrashed violently under his skin, and the red-hot panic that coiled in his gut.

"What?"

He felt Sam move away.

"Sorry, sorry. Stupid question."

Shit, shit, shit.

The panic went flying up into his throat, and it jammed itself there, a physical blockage.

His mind whirred.

He didn't mean it like that… did he?

Surely Sam could never feel something for someone like him. Someone anxious and awkward; someone nerdy and lame; someone who shut down easily, who took days to recharge, who never knew the right thing to say. He was a broken machine, while Sam ran on an endless supply of life and hope and energy. They were just so different.

But the phrasing… and the closeness… and the stumbling backward step into a frantic apology…

Sebastian might have been delusional, but he swore there was no other way to read it.

Not two hours ago, he was on a real stage, under a real spotlight, performing for a real crowd of no less than fifty; and yet reaching for Sam in the darkness felt like the boldest thing he had done all night.

"Wait, wait."

His fingertips found the soft shoulder of Sam's white T-shirt. He felt the weight of his closest, most meaningful friendship buckling underneath him, one wrong step away from collapsing.

"Sam, I…"

He swallowed his own heartbeat.

"…I think we might be feeling the same thing."

Sebastian withdrew his hand, just as he felt Sam roll back towards him. He didn't want to push this too far. Hell, he probably already had.

The ball was in Sam's court now. There was nothing else he could do. So, he waited.

That waiting period was, quite possibly, the most torturous thing he had ever experienced.

And feeling Sam's lips on his own was the greatest.

5. Age 22

The small, spinning wheel on Sebastian's screen was rapidly becoming the bane of his existence.

"But I j- a- beca- a- ause- I-" the pixelated image of Sam was saying.

Sebastian squinted.

"You're cutting out," he said.

"Sorr-" Sam started, before his blurry face was frozen in time, with his mouth open and that godforsaken wheel spinning around his nose.

Sebastian slapped his desk in frustration.

"Fucking hell," he muttered.

He wheeled his chair back and ran a hand through his hair.

It was getting rarer and rarer to find the time to talk to Sam, and Sebastian was finding it harder and harder to withstand the distance. There was all this new space between them, and all these new parts of their lives that they no longer shared, and trying to keep up with it all via a spotty internet connection was disheartening at best.

This wasn't how things were supposed to go. They were so close to getting out together. Kent was due to come back at the turn of the new year, Sebastian had secured an entry-level IT role, they'd found a cheap sharehouse in the city with two college students that would at least get them through the first half of the year. The plan was simple; they'd leave Pelican Town in the middle of spring, propped up by their joint Zuzu fund for as long as it took Sam to find a stable job (ideally with more humane wages than JojaMart).

But then Kent came back. A little more hollowed-out, a little more high-strung than the last time. And Sebastian had this ugly, wretched, twisting fear when Sam kissed him goodbye at the bus stop, when he promised he'd just stay until the end of spring, just until I know my family's okay, and then I'll meet you there in the summer, that the chain around his foot clung tighter than they'd bargained for.

Now their planet had spun well into the fall, and Sam's presence in his life was no different to the lines of code that stretched across his monitor, day in and day out. Just pixels on a screen.

With his computer fan buzzing and his pixel-boyfriend still frozen in place, Sebastian sought other forms of entertainment to pass the time. His eyes roamed over the same depressing scene that had been driving him stir-crazy over the past few seasons. His new bedroom was a dusty corner of the sharehouse with a desk tucked under a narrow loft bed. It was a far cry from the idyllic city life he and Sam had rhapsodised about since they were kids. Not that the location itself was the issue. Sebastian had recently realised that the city dream, for a very long time, hadn't really been about the city at all.

He'd tried to cling to Sam in whatever small ways he could. The slim rectangle of wall space behind was a graveyard of old, dead memories. Posters from movies they'd watched together. Flyers from concerts they'd fantasised about but never had the money to attend. A creased, torn-out page from Sam's lyric journal which Sebastian could never bring himself to throw away - the one written towards the end of their first ever jam session, when Sam was getting restless and bored, and he'd doodled a shitty rendition of the two of them performing on a big stage, haloed by swathes of equally shitty-looking crowd members.

There was one single picture he refused to hang up on the wall - in part because there was no room for it, and in larger part because one of his noisy, inconsiderate roommates occupied the room behind, and if the wall shook for any reason, the picture risked incurring catastrophic damage. He'd paid enough money to have it framed that he was willing to take great precautions to uphold its pristine condition.

It was a framed photograph of Goblin Destroyer, back in its heyday. It was the one Abigail had taken backstage on that cheap instant camera her parents bought for her 20th birthday; one of only five total photos produced during its short-lived career. Sebastian's face was in the middle, sandwiched between his two bandmates. It was the only photo of Sebastian since childhood that depicted him actually smiling with teeth, courtesy of Abigail nudging in the ribs and demanding him to 'look happy for once'.

He did, admittedly, hate the way he looked when he smiled. He hated the way he looked full stop, but his smile in particular added a certain air of dorky awkwardness that reminded him of his early teenagehood. The photo, however, had sentimental value beyond the mere fact of Sebastian's rare, manufactured expression.

It was taken the night that Sam and Sebastian got together - not two hours before they retreated to the hotel room for that first fated union. It was, likewise, the first photo Sebastian had ever seen of them in which Sam looked really, truly enamoured. He always looked happy in photos - because it was Sam, and his trademark toothy grin looked genuine even when it was pulled at a second's notice - but this was different. He was leaning right into Sebastian's side, one arm slung around his shoulders, and he'd been caught with his eyes ticked a little way off-centre. They weren't looking at the camera. They were looking at Sebastian. And they were reverent.

Sebastian had seen that look countless times since then, but he didn't remember ever catching it before their relationship had blossomed into something more than a friendship. Honestly, before they became a thing, it hadn't even crossed his mind that Sam might possibly feel the same way that he did. Feelings would crop up, and he'd dutifully swat them away, until he could almost pretend they didn't exist at all. There was no way someone like Sam could ever love someone like Sebastian. Sam was bright, fun, outgoing, likeable, not to mention extremely fucking attractive, in an effortless, boy-next-door kind of way.

Sebastian was… none of those things. Some days, he didn't even believe that Sam truly liked him as a friend, let alone anything more. But there he was, fossilised in ink and a sleek wooden frame, gazing at Sebastian with nothing short of awe.

It was that very look that kept Sebastian pushing through, no matter how hard things got.

The pixelated Sam blinked back to life, his movements jerky but distinct nonetheless. The background had changed - now boasting the vibrant purple hue of Sam's living room rather than his bedroom's lattice of plain brown bricks.

"Sorry," he said. At least he could utter the whole word now. "I've moved closer to the router, so hopefully it should work better now."

And it did - which was a relief for a grand, whopping total of two seconds, before Vincent flung himself into frame, almost knocking the laptop off Sam's lap. Sam stabilised the device with one arm while the other looped around Vincent from behind, keeping his bouncy enthusiasm at bay before he could wreak any more havoc on the singular avenue of connection Sam and Sebastian still had to one another.

Sam was laughing through it all, like he always did. Sebastian, meanwhile, was scrambling to pick up all the pieces of his heart that had slipped through the gaps in his ribcage.

"Woah, careful there, bud," Sam was saying. He withdrew his arm from Vincent's tiny waist and tilted his laptop towards him. "Wanna say hi to Seb?"

Vincent settled into a spot right beside Sam on the couch, perched tentatively on his heels like a cat preparing to pounce. He waved with a vigour that looked almost painful.

"Hi Seb!"

Sebastian pressed his lips together in his preferred imitation of a smile. "Hey, Vince."

Sam turned to Vincent.

"Vincey, why don't you go play in your room for a bit?"

Vincent's mouth sloped into a frown. "Why can't I talk to Seb?"

"Seb and I are talking about boring adult things," Sam said. "Like taxes."

Vincent pulled a face.

"Boooring."

"Exactly." Sam patted him on the back. "Go play with your action figures. I'll come read to you later, 'kay?"

"Okay!"

And suddenly, he was smiling again - the exact same dramatic emotional shifts that Sam used to pull when he was younger. He'd be sad for approximately three seconds, and then something else would grab his attention, and all that misery would melt right off. It was something Sebastian always admired about him.

Sam waited until Vincent's door swung shut before he looked back at Sebastian.

"Okay," he said, "I think we're alone now."

Sebastian said nothing. He didn't know what there was to say. Through all the interruptions, he couldn't remember what they'd even been talking about to begin with, and now there was too much fog in his brain, and too painful of an ache in his heart, and he kind of just wanted to curl up in his stupid creaky loft bed and cry himself to sleep and pray that Yoba was merciful enough to keep his eyes shut for good.

The thing is, Sebastian had always been the quieter one of their duo. Sam did about seventy percent of the talking, so Sebastian did seventy percent of the listening, and it was never awkward or strange, because that was just how they worked. But now, the silence felt thick. It felt menacing. It felt like it could strangle him.

Maybe it was because Sam didn't know what to say, either. And even when he did start talking, it felt like he was just filling silence. Killing time. Keeping open a line of communication that frayed and resisted.

"Hey, don't worry," he said, as if on cue. Sebastian's anguish must have been plastered all over his face. "It's not gonna be this way forever. Mum just needs me around for a little while longer, but as soon as I can get there, we're gonna be living it up in the city together like we always talked about."

Sebastian nodded, with about half a crumb of enthusiasm. He glanced over at that prized little photo frame; that look in Sam's eye, so bright and rich and alive. He clung to that with whatever strength he had.

+1. Age 24

Maru nudged Sebastian's shoulder.

"Could you pass me the salad?" she asked.

"Right."

He reached across the spread of his family's Winter Star table and grabbed the wooden bowl from the far end.

"Thanks," she said, as she took it from him. She loaded several spoonfuls onto her plate, while Sebastian returned to his job of keeping his head down and trying to pretend he couldn't see the back of a green beanie at the next table over.

In another lifetime, the wearer of said beanie might have been at Sebastian's family table, passing condiments and making Robin laugh in that effortless way he always did. He might've claimed the empty seat Sebastian strategically left between himself and Demetrius, and set a reassuring hand on Sebastian's knee whenever Demetrius 'helpfully' interjected to micromanage the way Sebastian cut a turkey.

In this lifetime, Sebastian wanted to avoid him as long as possible.

They weren't broken up, per se. They were… well, Sebastian didn't really know what they were now. To say they were long-distance boyfriends felt like an understatement; 'long-distance' couldn't possibly do justice to the complex network of fissures that ran between them now. They texted on occasion, called maybe twice a season, and Sebastian couldn't wager a bet on how Sam spent his days anymore. He might still work at JojaMart. He might not. He could still be playing guitar, or he could have shelved that dream and taken up competitive slam poetry, for all Sebastian knew.

All he knew was that a conversation was long overdue. And Sebastian was only here from the day of Winter Star until the dawn of the new year, which meant that conversation had to happen soon.

For now, he was quite content to keep delaying it.

"So," Maru said through a mouthful, "how's the big city life been treating you, Seb?"

It was the exact same question she'd asked him for the last three Winter Star feasts in a row, but it gave him an excuse to stop staring at Sam, so he couldn't complain.

"It's busy," he said.

That was the most he was willing to admit.

Some time later, Sebastian snuck away from the festivities. The secret gift exchange had begun, and since Sebastian was technically no longer a resident of the town, he hadn't been assigned to anyone. Factoring in the visitors to the valley would have been too much work for Mayor Lewis, he supposed. That was fine by him; it spared him the awkwardness of conversing with two barely-acquaintances in the gifting process, and gave him the perfect window to slip away once he'd had his share of the banquet.

He stood by his old spot at the mountain lake, cigarette draped from his fingers. Absently, he wondered how many frogs still lived around this area. He used to hear them in the warmer months, croaking from the bushes while he smoked in the late evenings. It was one of the only things he missed about the valley. That, and…

His musings were interrupted by the crunch of snow in the distance, growing louder as the seconds climbed.

"I had a feeling I'd find you up here."

Sebastian stiffened.

Sam came to a stop right beside him and nudged Sebastian's shoulder with his own. "Some things still haven't changed, huh?"

Sebastian shrugged.

"Old habits die hard."

He took a long drag from his cigarette.

Beside him, Sam dropped to the ground and seated himself cross-legged in the snow. He patted the empty space to his left.

"C'mon, sit down," he said.

Sebastian looked down at him, brow lowered.

"It's wet."

"So?"

"I don't wanna sit on wet snow."

Sam made a sound of mock-annoyance, before leaping up and tackling Sebastian to the ground. The high-pitched squeak it wrenched out of Sebastian was nothing short of totally mortifying. He writhed in the snow like a beetle flipped over, desperate to pull himself upright, but Sam had him boxed in with a knee on either side of him and a hand pinning each of his wrists.

Sam was laughing in the chaos, and Sebastian couldn't really tell, but he was pretty sure he was laughing too. It bubbled from an old vault of vulnerability in his chest that he was so sure he'd locked up for good, but Sam always had a way of cracking it open and letting buried traces of emotion trickle out.

Sebastian stopped struggling after a while, and the chaos settled, and then he was left with nothing to do but gaze up into Sam's eyes. They burned a fierce blue, the colour of the lake water trapped under a sheet of ice and the expanse of sky concealed behind clouds. He hadn't seen those eyes in person for almost a full calendar year; not since spring was just beginning to melt last year's snow, and Sam had promised, he'd promised that it was the last heart-strangling bus stop goodbye they'd ever have to endure.

At once, the vault burst all the way open, and everything he'd ever felt for Sam launched into orbit around his brain. The unwanted pining, the shoving it down, the pretending it didn't exist. The stolen glances, the forbidden touches, the literal shot in the dark. Then the distance, the dwindling hope, the demons he couldn't exorcise. The constant ache that hummed just below the surface, a temperamental tidal wave that ebbed and flowed with every curt text, every broken call, every stretched limit of a promise.

This was the dangerous summit he'd ascended to, where a question sprouted at the peak.

Was it all worth it?

Was he worth it?

Sam pulled back with an awkward cough, freeing Sebastian from his confines. Sebastian was dismayed to learn that his cigarette had been extinguished by the snow.

He sat upright, his jeans and jacket soaked all the way through.

"Is it weird to be back?" Sam asked. "You haven't been here in almost a year."

Weird was definitely one word for it, though it was hardly the first adjective that came to mind.

"I suppose."

Sam scratched the back of his neck.

"Dad's doing a lot better," he said.

"That's good to hear."

There was a thick silence. Sebastian watched the lake.

"Vincent's also doing better. He's a lot more stable." Sam straightened his posture, propping himself up on both hands. "He actually ate my mum's lentil soup last night. Like, you could see the bottom of the bowl."

"Damn." Despite everything, Sebastian managed to pull a small smile. "That's progress."

"Right? For Vince, that's like, as big a milestone as graduating."

Sebastian left another silence hanging in the air between them, and then Sam shuffled closer, a fragment of determination creeping in place of that awkward sheepishness that had so often defined their last two years of interactions.

"What about you?" he asked.

Sebastian's smile vanished.

"I, um."

Things have been terrible. I'm lonely, and the city is awful, and I see you more in a damn photograph than I do in real life, and it fucking sucks.

"I've been alright." He itched for a cigarette. Damn it. "I've, uh, got a new place."

"Oh! Really?"

"Yeah." He chanced a sideways look in Sam's direction. His eyes were alight with wonder. "It's a studio apartment, so it's pretty small, but it's just me there now. No more shitty roommates."

The apartment, like everything else in the city, sucked. It felt like living in a shoebox with a bathroom attached; its only real features were a bed and a kitchenette, and a desk that was about half the size of the one at his last place, which meant that he couldn't even fit the photo there anymore. He had to sit it up on the bathroom counter where it faced the imminent threat of being ruined by sink water.

But it was functional. It was cosy. It was his.

It had everything he needed. All but one thing.

"Well…" Sam raised an eyebrow. "Does it have room for two?"

Sebastian blinked.

"What?"

Sam's hand dove into the pocket of his jacket, and he pulled out a crumpled slip of paper, torn at one edge.

"I meant what I said last time. I don't want to say goodbye to you at the bus stop again, not knowing how long it'll be until I see you." He shook his head. "You're too important to me."

Sebastian's brows curved inward.

"Sam…"

Sam handed him the paper with a wistful smile. Sebastian unfolded it.

Dear Sam,

We are pleased to offer you a position as 'junior composer' at Zuzu Broadcasting Group, TV division.

Sebastian's vision went blurry.

"I applied for a bunch of jobs in the city," Sam said. "It's for a kids' show, which isn't exactly what I had in mind, but it's a music job, so I want to take it."

"Are you sure?"

"Very." He took the paper back from Sebastian, and slid close enough that their knees touched. The snow squelched underneath him. "It's sucked ass living without you for so long. My family is finally back together, and I wanted so badly to be happy, but the whole time, I just…"

Sam turned away for a moment, blinking several times in rapid succession. He drew in a shaky breath. It plumed in the cold air when he sent it back out.

His eyes were glassy when he looked at Sebastian again.

"…I just wished you were here."

"Fuck, Sam."

Sebastian lurched forward and closed what little gap remained between them. Sam's mouth was cold, and his mittens were damp when they found Sebastian's face, but inside, Sebastian had never felt so warm. Sam's lips tasted like everything he'd once thought the city would be. A dream, a refuge, a home. Sam was exactly where he was meant to be. The place he was supposed to run to. The place he was supposed to lose himself in.

Sam pulled away, and Sebastian saw the world in his eyes.

"Um." Sam reached into his pocket again. "I do actually have one other thing for you."

Sebastian's head tilted in a silent question. Sam handed him another sheet of paper, and a familiar black marker. Sebastian unfolded it.

He spat a brusque laugh.

"What is this?"

Across the top, in Sam's familiar barely-legible scrawl, the words 'Lease Agreement' had been written in giant letters. Below was a series of conditions he'd written out in mock-legal jargon, with the starting date specified as Winter 25th and the ending date Forever. Two spaces at the bottom were marked for signatures. Sam's messy signature had been scribbled across the first one. The second was left blank.

"It's a contract for a lease," Sam said. "Since we never actually got to sign one together, y'know? This is a promise that we're actually going to do it for real this time. No buts. No conditions. The day the snow clears and the spring flowers start popping up, you're taking me with you, and we're not gonna look back."

Sebastian stared at the 'contract'. It was quite possibly the dorkiest thing he'd ever seen, but it was also the absolute embodiment of Sam on paper; messy, sweet, playful. A broad grin broke across Sebastian's face.

He let himself keep grinning as he signed his name underneath Sam's and watched him hold out the document in front of him, the white sheet beaming beneath winter's poor excuse for sunshine.

"That settles it, then," he said. He shoved the paper back into his pocket and looked Sebastian in the eye. "I'm all yours, from today until forever."

Sebastian kissed him with all the fervour of a long-lost lover. It was very, very worth it.