what if? // sebastian sallow

In the Shadow of Relief

Suggested soundtrack: Do I Wanna Know - Hozier (covering Arctic Monkeys)

I wake up in a disoriented blur, warm sunlight streaming through the windows, several familiar faces crowded around me. As I blink my eyes open slowly, I can make out Ominis, Amit, Poppy, Imelda, Anne, and – the most comforting of them all – Sebastian.

"Thank Merlin you're still alive! You gave everyone such a scare!" Imelda yells loudly, stalking away from my bedside immediately, muttering under her breath, clearly needing to blow off some anxious steam. I hold back a smile at her annoyance, feeling oddly comforted by it at this time.

"I truly can't believe what you did," Ominis says quietly, his eyes on mine, a deep sense of respect lingering in them.

Feeling slowly returns to my extremities as I try to garner the fragments of memories of what happened. I feel warm fingers curled around mine and suddenly notice that Sebastian is holding my hand. When I lock eyes with him, he shoots me that lazy, warm, familiar smile that makes my heart flutter.

"That was a really dangerous thing you did, Jasmine. How are you feeling?" a stern voice asks from my right, and I nervously turn my attention to Anne. I'm expecting a full on verbal assault from her for how recklessly I acted, but her eyes are soft.

I do a double-take to look more closely at Anne, and see her cheeks are warm and flushed, her hair silken and smooth, her amber eyes alert – she looks so alive.

I take a mental inventory and realize to my surprise that I am feeling fairly normal. "I'm okay, actually." I hesitate for a moment to garner up courage to ask the question I've been meaning to ask. "Do you still feel...numb?"

Anne looks at me, her expression indecipherable for a second, before her face quickly melts into a radiant warmth. "No, Jasmine," she says, quietly, the joy barely masked in her voice. "I actually feel like my old self again – before I was ever cursed."

Her words warm my heart, and when I glance over to see Sebastian's expression, my eyes start to well up with happy tears. He looks the softest I have seen him in a while – the creases and shadows around his eyes have eased significantly.

"I'll give you guys some time alone," Anne says quietly, slipping away before I can say another word.

Poppy gives my hand a quick squeeze before she, Ominis, and Amit also take their exit, finally leaving Sebastian alone with me in the quiet hush of the infirmary.

Sebastian's soft touch absentmindedly trails down my arm, leaving goosebumps in its wake.

His eyes meet mine, something warm flickering in their golden brown depths. "I thought I lost you. Why would you do something like that?" he asks, his voice going soft.

"Ever since I've known you, Sebastian, your number one priority has always been curing Anne – the one thing always on your mind, the one thing that seemed like it had the chance to make you happy again. I just wanted to give you that," I admit.

"Jazz...I love Anne and I'm very grateful that you tried to cure her completely. But I think you're also underestimating how much you mean to me, how important you are to me. If you hurt yourself saving her, I wouldn't know how to be happy again," Sebastian says, his fingers squeezing mine, just ever so slightly tighter.

I squeeze back, and he smiles.

"How are you...okay, though? What exactly happened with the curse?" Sebastian asks, lowering his voice to prevent the other patients in the infirmary from hearing us.

"I don't know for sure, but I have a guess. Do you remember in fifth year, when I went down to the repository with Professor Fig and defeated Ranrok there? After that, I had the choice to either keep the power locked in the repository forever, or to try to harness it for myself. At the time, I chose to harness the power," I remind him. "What if having harnessed that power counteracted the dark curse now? No one really knew about the implications of taking that power...it was all experimental. I almost feel as if the curse was not able to affect me because of it. When I was pulling the dark magic into myself, it almost felt as if...if it was at odds with something already inside of me. I don't know if I'm making any sense...it is just how it felt."

Sebastian mulls over my words, his eyes thoughtful. "Maybe Anne's curse was no match for the darkness that was in the repository."

"Maybe. Though I don't quite understand why I am not cursed in any way like Anne was."    

I can see Sebastian mulling over it for a moment, but his expression quickly loses its tension. "For right now, I just want to be happy that you're okay and that Anne seems cured. There are so many things we don't understand about the dark magic yet and maybe that's okay. Maybe we don't need to understand everything just yet."

He locks eyes with me and I can't seem to tear my gaze away from the golden depths illuminated by streaks of sunlight – I want to lose myself in him so badly.

When he leans down to gently kiss me, I dreamily trail my fingertips through the mess of curls in his hair, tugging him closer to me with every breath we take. Sebastian's lips on mine start off slow and sweet, with him holding me tenderly – as if I'm made of fragile glass that may crack at any moment. He quickly senses my fervor and his kiss grows hungrier as our mouths and hearts meld together in a warm blur that overtakes my senses.

"I love you, Jazz. I love you so much," he starts whispering to me, over and over and over again, as he peppers my face with kisses.

"I love you, Seb," I whisper back, heart immediately melting at his words.

Words we'd never physically shared before, but that has always lingered in the way we look at each other, in the soft way we speak to each other, in the way we kiss.

Close is never close enough when it comes to Sebastian.

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I am so sorry that I keep taking such long breaks from writing this fanfiction -- life keeps getting in the way lol, but I have not stopped thinking about this book. Thanks so much to those of you that have asked for updates, it does keep me motivated <333 I'm very close to completing this one, then might write more things in the future!! <33