razorblade | sebastian vettel ✓

chapter 12 | home to you

«I've been playing dead my whole life and I get this feeling whenever I feel good it'll be the last time.»

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She turned to him, and so did Sebastian. Mimicking the way she folded her hands and everything. Cassandra narrowed her eyes but eventually relaxed at the sight of his nonchalant expression.

"It's not like your house in Switzerland. Not even like where you live here in Milton Keynes." She said as if he would care about that.

Fairly enough the place wasn't bad. Abigail had a good job, and Cassandra even in her unemployed momentum had money to afford a good and decent place. They lived well and in a nice neighbourhood, sure it wasn't Switzerland and she didn't have a pool but whatever. Sebastian drifted his attention from her to the building in front of them. They really didn't live that far away if he thought about it. From his flat in Milton Keynes, that was.

"It looks nice." He simply said, switching over to her again.

"Alright, let's go."

Cassandra got off the car first, and he followed her after, locking his car and walking behind her as she entered the building. The man at the entrance looked at them, she pretty much just looked back without saying a single word, whilst Sebastian gave him a nod as a greeting. It seemed like he probably recognised him for a bit. The doors of the elevator closed behind them as she pressed the button to her floor. They stayed in silence until the elevator doors opened again and she motioned for him to follow.

She struggled with the key for a second, and Sebastian smiled fondly, and then the door opened. Cassandra was very grateful Abigail was as tidy as one could be. The whole flat smelled like roses though, she grimaced at that. His eyes scanned the place. It looked and felt exactly how the apartment of two twenty-something-year-old girls would be. Maybe more homely thanks to Abigail, or Cassandra thought so. There were a few paintings, mostly abstract ones, some marked posters of what Sebastian assumed were bands or movies, and a lot of plants.

"I like the posters." He mentioned, gesturing at them with his hand.

She smiled. "My flatmate, best friend, she got obsessed with a bunch of obscure films a couple of years ago. They look nice." She peeked at the posters. Most of the decor in the flat was on Abigail, Cassandra mostly took care of her room. "Come." Cassandra extended her hand for him to take.

Sebastian took a couple of seconds and grabbed it, before being guided to what he assumed was her room. Unlike the living room, Cassandra's bedroom just felt like hers. What caught his attention the most was the big bookshelf on one side of the room, it was fairly stacked with books of different sizes and colours, but there was one row where the books just followed the same design pattern. That got his attention. She let go of his hand and he took the opportunity to walk over to the bookshelf. Cassandra followed him with her gaze, up until he stood in front of the books and looked back at her.

"You read a lot." He told her with a smile plastered on his lips.

She half-shrugged. "I got a bunch of them from my dad's collection."

He nodded and looked again at the books. The row with similar books more specifically. Mike Dunley, the name of the author read on the spine of the books. It could be a whole collection for all he knew.

"You like this one a lot." Sebastian pointed at the row. "Is he your favourite?"

Cassandra chuckled. "Those are my dad's published books." She clarified.

He turned to her, a little frown creasing his brows in confusion. "But you are Cassandra Ritter? No?"

"I am Cassandra Ritter. He wrote under a pseudonym. His actual name was Robert Ritter, but he always said it sounded weird, so that was his writer's name. Mike Dunley." She remembered telling him that Robert Ritter sounded way better, but he always shook his head.